Set in 1950s America, this true tale of a (possibly) dying woman taking a cross-country journey on horseback in the dawning age of interstate highways has inspiring moments. The most uplifting aspect is the kindness that strangers bestow on Annie Wilkins as she leaves behind a poverty-stricken life in rural Maine to seek the sunny promise of southern California.

The first few chapters read like fiction, and the author does not clarify how she came by this first-hand knowledge of a woman alone on her farm. But the end-matter reveals that Wilkins did write a memoir, and presumably this is the source.

Letts follows Wilkins from New England to Kentucky, across the Mississippi to Wyoming and Idaho, and finally south to California over the course of about 18 months. Wilkins starts out her journey riding a Morgan horse named Tarzan, accompanied by her little dog Depeche Toi (French for “Hurry Up”). It’s November and she unsuccessfully races to beat the winter weather. She has little money to her name and no maps to chart her course. Along the way, a Tennessee community donates a second horse.

That she completed the journey at all is astonishing. Wilkins had a knack for making poor decisions. Some are almost unforgivable. If camping in a dry wash only impacted Wilkins, that would be one thing, but she often endangered her loyal animal companions, which is difficult to comprehend. There are tear-jerking episodes, be forewarned.

Along the journey, Letts offers readers vivid depictions of American life in the mid-twentieth century, a way of life that sixty-three-year-old Wilkins had little contact with living on her farm: television, highways, city life in general. The author digs up gems about the communities Annie passes through and metaphorically ties them to Wilkins’s impossible journey.

Letts seems to suggest that an adventure like this could not happen in the U.S. today, but books such as Rinker Buck’s Oregon Trail would argue otherwise. Perhaps Wilkins’s tale will inspire others. The Ride of Her Life is a worthy addition to the classic road-trip literary genre.