Motorcycles I’ve Loved: A Memoir

Riding motorcycles was a way of throwing off the cute label that had always described Brooks-Dalton, as this intrepid and determined debut author recounts. Brooks-Dalton, who grew up in rural Vermont and earned a degree from the local community college by the age of 17, here writes about the four-year world trek that landed her with a serious boyfriend in Australia. Back in the U.S. and feeling lost at 21, she got a motorcycle, her first, and resolved to start afresh in Northampton, Mass., with her zippy little Rebel 250 that would serve nicely as her vehicle for change. In chapters whose titles cleverly capture the physics of motorcycling (“Velocity,” “Inertia,” Propulsion,” and so on), Brooks-Dalton essentially tells the story of coming into her own: leaving behind the Australian boyfriend, making peace with her adored, estranged older brother, establishing new ties with her parents who relocated to Florida, and learning to admit defeat and move on when a bike she bought for a road trip proved too cumbersome and big for her. In her reflective prose, Brooks-Dalton captures the nearly mesmerizing quality of solitary, long-distance riding. She offers some useful tips on maintenance and repair, and overall she portrays a satisfying journey to a very American sense of selfhood and autonomy. (Apr.)