“The road is empty and there’s so much here.” With its biting flies, granny gears, and a proliferation of mysterious spoons, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s What a Bicycle Can Carry is at turns fiercely melancholic and playful, a generous meditation on the intersection of self and place that stitches one moment/image/sensation to the next. Wiseman’s chronicle of a journey from Virginia to Oregon asks, “what’s a treasure if not found and free,” and shows what it means to strive for one’s best self when nobody’s watching. It's smart, tough, and tender. Truly a gift.
—Wendy Oleson, author of Please Find Us
