Cassandra Pybus
The Woman Who Walked to Russia
A Writer’s Search for a Lost Legend

Three women's lives intersect in this book: Cassandra, the writer; Gerry, her travel companion and old friend; and Lillian Alling, the object of Cassandra's historical curiosity.

Cassandra Pybus begins her search on paper, looking for records of Lillian Alling, a woman who, legend has it, in 1927 attempted to walk from New York City to Russia. But the paper trail only takes her so far; so in the tradition of Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson, Cassandra hops a plane in her native Australia and lands in the great Pacific Northwest, where her journey with Gerry in search of the enigmatic and peripatetic Lillian begins in earnest.

Setting out from Vancouver and travelling into the upper reaches of the Yukon Territory along the old telegraph lines, Cassandra and Gerry trace what may have been Lillian Alling's route. As the two women trek north, they find Lillian's trail has grown faint and leads are hard to come by.

Seventy-five years have left the scars of industrialization on British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska, but the scenery, as described by Pybus, is as breathtaking as it was when Lillian made her break for the border: rough cut purple hills, the shimmering spectacle of color from autumn aspens, frozen glacial rivers, mountain peaks enveloped in clouds.

As travel tension flares and Lillian continues to elude the hunt, Cassandra's patience with Gerry wears thin. Where Gerry complains "that the trouble with this country is that it is so fucking empty," Cassandra revels in the landscape and its social and natural history, which she shares throughout with intelligence and the passion of someone who cares deeply about the environment.

Is it possible that a young immigrant woman walked thousands of miles from New York City to Russia? Perhaps. Does it matter? Not really. Cassandra does in the end discover Lillian's fate, but this spirited romp delivers that and much, much more.

Cassandra Pybus is a prize-winning Australian writer. This is her first book to be published in the United States.

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