Ghost Rider

The tragedies that befell Neil Peart in 1997 and '98 would level anyone.   His nineteen year old daughter Selena died in an automobile accident.   Almost one year later, his wife Jackie would also pass ("the doctors called it cancer, but of course it was a broken heart.").   The celebrated drummer extraordinaire of the band Rush was left in his lakefront home in Quebec with a shattered spirit and the terrible weight of recollection.  Too much to bear, necessitating this already seasoned world traveler to mount his beloved red BMW R1100GS motorcycle and hit the road.  This time anywhere it would take him.

  

Peart's 2002 tome Ghost Rider, Travels on the Healing Road is a first person account of his journeys (totaling 55,000 miles) over the course of a year from Canada to Belize and then back from Canada and through the western United States.  Mostly spent in solitude, with occasional stops to see family and friends.  It is beautifully written and verbose, as you would expect from the formidable lyricist.  It is some adventure, from that unfortunate time a gas station attendant mistakenly filled his bike's tank with diesel, to dealings with crusty BMW employees, to.the general confusion with Mexican roadmaps.  Also, unpredictable weather and occasional gastric distress.  

Neil's descriptions of natural wonders (some of which he hiked) and manmade atrocities (Las Vegas) alike are a joy to read, touching just about every available emotion in the reader.  His appreciation of the smallest details of Mother Earth imbues every page of Ghost Rider, and while paragraphs sometimes grow dense and require re-reading, it is out of a desire to savor the lovingly composed passages.  His travelogue includes all the hotels and restaurants he visited, each with entertaining, descriptive, and blunt commentary.  How Neil describes himself and his reluctant encounters with strangers is about how I pictured this sensitive, very private soul.  Rush's song "Limelight" really described him perfectly.  Before and after.   In the face of life altering, unimaginable tragedies, the newly self described "ghost rider" would have no use for the things that once brought him great satisfaction.  He describes the man he once was as that "other guy", with whom he now shared nothing but memories.

Such "things" included making music.   Neil would tell his bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson that he was now retired.  He (of late going by his middle name - Ellwood) would not even approach a drum kit for some time.   But as the travels unfold,  Peart rediscovers his love for art, still devouring an impressive array of books by the likes of Jack London and Edward Abbey.  I was making notes for my own reading list. 

There are gut wrenching passages of the haunting memories he vainly tried to fight off and reconcile.  Loving remembrances of Jackie and Selena.  In a bit to which most readers can relate, the ghost rider tells of the day he had to bolt from a bar when its TV was playing GREASE, one of his daughter's favorite movies.   "The Professor",  the musician with godlike abilities seen as the fragile human we all are.

Most of the second half of the book is a collection of letters from the road, revamped journal entries of sorts written mainly to Neil's frequent buddy in past motorbike travel, a guy named Brutus who found himself in prison for what is vaguely alluded to as some sort of possession charge.  This break from the author's direct communication with the reader is a bit disappointing at times, and I feel far too many of these missives were included.  Though they do reveal this broken man's ability to reignite his sense of humor. 

I really responded to Mr. Peart's (pronounced peert) candid nature.  Even when in those brief moments it seemed a bit smug and off-putting.  Some readers may take his dismissals of the typical American tourist as reeking of a superiority complex, but damned if what he recounts isn't just undebatable.  Maybe that's why, in part, I've always felt a kinship with him.   But also for his, even in the lowest of spiritual and emotional states, unquenchable desire for knowledge.  It's inspiring.  Just like his band's music.  The book feels like a companion I can revisit anytime, like an old friend, even as "Limelight" contains the line "I can't believe a stranger is a long awaited friend."  I get it, Neil; fame was an unwelcome intrusion,  but through your work I do feel such a connection.  I wish I could've somehow had the chance to sit down with you, chatting about everything as we sipped your beloved Macallan scotch.

Rush broke up after over forty years as a tight unit in 2018.  Neil Peart died of brain cancer in January of 2020, leaving behind his new family - a wife and a daughter.   The crush of this still stings, and makes every word of Ghost Rider that much more poignant.