Chasing Ruth

What happens to a family of four when it travels over 18,000 miles in five weeks? In this nonfiction account the author's family follows in the century-old footsteps of writer Holly J. Pierce's grandmother Ruth Crapo taken during her six-month Grand Tour of Europe and beyond.

While the Grand Tour was designed to educate and refine a 27-year-old young lady, this contemporary journey initially planned to be both one of connection with the past and a chance to strengthen family bonds turns into a hectic, often grimly humorous forced march.

Based on the words of Grandmother Ruth's diary, the trek taken a century later comes to life through the candid words hastily scratched into the author and her daughters' diaries as the family scrambled to make connections with trains, ferries, metros and planes. How the whine of circular saws, pushy Italian futbol players and French onion soup serve to both tear apart and heal wounds and grievances among these four travelers make it a trip not to be missed.