“The best adventures begin when least expected, when they can lead anywhere and change everything.”
The Illogical Adventure has everything one could want in a story: travel, adventure, and—best of all—true love. If you’re a love skeptic, this book could cure you.
It all started one night in a pub in Cape Town; a chance meeting between a Zambian woman who was just about to leave South Africa for a job on a cruise ship in Venice and a Canadian man who had just arrived after a 52-day sail from Argentina. It’s hard to imagine, but somehow the two of them connected enough that night—despite James’s ghastly facial hair situation—to keep in touch, the beginning of a long-distance relationship that would end with two weddings, two babies, and two happy humans. (This is not a spoiler; it’s immediately apparent from the author photo on the back of the book.)
“The Illogical Adventure is not just a good story, it is also beautifully written and thoughtfully put together.”
As someone who doesn’t travel a lot, the amount of travel in this book blew my mind. And the amount of planning and coordinating for the two of them to meet up, even for just a few hours, must have been a monumental task. But things got even harder for them when the pandemic hit and the world went into lockdown. Although the couple’s courtship sounds romantic when reading about it in a book, I imagine it felt much different to them in real time. The waiting and planning, wondering and worrying; the hours of plane travel and the hours of paperwork. Overcoming obstacles can make a story more rewarding for the reader; I hope it did the same for Mirriam and James.
Fate and faith are themes in the book; the idea that there is a larger entity playing a hand in things. It’s hard to deny it’s a possibility after reading their story. What if Mirriam had decided to wait outside the pub for her taxi? What if James had left the pub earlier, as he had originally planned? What if he hadn’t found the courage to sit at Mirriam’s table to say hello? What if Mirriam hadn’t been able to see past the scruffy beard and had given him the cold shoulder? What if they had decided to go their separate ways and forget about the whole thing? Any of these possibilities would probably have been more likely than what really happened.
The Illogical Adventure is not just a good story, it is also beautifully written and thoughtfully put together. The narrative alternates between James and Mirriam, allowing the reader to get to know them as individuals as well as a couple; James’s restless years working as a lawyer in Halifax when all he wanted to do was travel the world, and Mirriam’s resistance to the traditional life of a woman in her rural village and her determination to see more of the world.
James and Mirriam’s story is proof that you can still find love in this big world, and that it can grow and endure through vast distances, cultural differences, religious differences, and even piles of administrative paperwork. I have to hand it to them, I probably would have thrown in the towel after filling out the first form.
A memoir you don’t want to miss. I wish them and their two sweet boys a long and happy life together.
About the Author
James grew up in Moncton and has called Halifax home for twenty years since arriving to study law at Dalhousie University. He also holds an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the University of King's College. He works as a regulatory lawyer in Atlantic Canada's electricity and natural resources sector. Mirriam is originally from the small village of Batoka in Zambia and her educational and professional background are in the health and tourism sectors. They live in Cole Harbour with their sons, Anderson Arthur and Jack Benjamin. This is their first book.
About the Reviewer
Naomi MacKinnon lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, three kids, a dog, three cats, and a bunny. She works in the children's department at the beautiful Truro Public Library, where she loves to read all the picture books and play with the puppets. She blogs about (mostly) Canadian and Atlantic Canadian books at Consumed by Ink.
Book Details
Publisher : Pottersfield Press
Publication date : Feb. 28 2025
Language : English
Print length : 160 pages
ISBN-10 : 1990770711
ISBN-13 : 978-1990770715
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