Keeneland Library will host Elizabeth Letts in discussion of The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America.

About the Book

In 1954, 63-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.

The three travelers rode more than 4,000 miles, through America’s big cities and small towns. Along the way, she met ordinary people and celebrities and received many offers—a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher. In a decade when car ownership nearly tripled, when television’s influence was expanding fast, when homeowners began locking their doors, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.

About the Author

Elizabeth Letts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction and non-fiction and 2017 Pen USA Literary Award for Research Nonfiction recipient.  A graduate of Yale College and the Yale School of Nursing, she is a passionate equestrian, a former certified nurse-midwife, and she served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.