“Mothertrucker: Finding Joy on the Loneliest Road in America.” Amy Butcher. (Little A, Nov. 1, 2021.)
Amy Butcher’s new book, “Mothertrucker,” has everything and nothing to do with Alaska.
Butcher’s second book – out now – chronicles her journey north to Prudhoe Bay with Fairbanks trucker Joy Wiebe, popularly known as Joy Mothertrucker.
Wiebe died driving the Dalton Highway in August 2018, the same highway that’s at the center of Butcher’s latest memoir.
But “Mothertrucker” isn’t just about Wiebe’s death and the place Wiebe called home: it’s about abusive relationships.
Butcher, a professor in creative writing at Ohio Wesleyan University, travels to Fairbanks and wants to climb into Wiebe’s truck cab in part because Butcher, herself, is in an emotionally abusive relationship. It is understood that Butcher’s journey to Alaska is motivated by this toxic relationship, and by her desire to run from it, at least for a short while.
This is made even more important when it comes to light that Butcher isn’t the only one in the truck cab who’s survived an abusive relationship – Wiebe has, too. In fact, Wiebe’s relationships are a large part of why she drives the 414-mile haul road that spans from Fairbanks to Alaska’s arctic oil fields, a job that is grueling and dangerous, and where Wiebe is the only female trucker.
It’s through the context of Butcher’s and Wiebe’s shared experiences – and their attempts at sharing what they’ve gone through with each other – that Alaska truly enters the fabric of the text.
As someone from Alaska who has read a fair share of Alaskana, I was expecting Alaska’s role to be one of healing, and to take a front seat. But it seems to me that Butcher’s book places Alaska as more of a supporting character, and it is Wiebe, instead, who plays the part Alaska usually does.
This works well. The way Alaska (and land, in general) is often portrayed in books is as a feminine force: a place that offers refuge, that provides, and that consoles.
Wiebe, in this case, is working with the landscape of the Dalton Highway to provide all three – the refuge of her 18-wheeler’s cab and her kindness, the provision of both, and the consolation of having gone through an abusive dating experience similar to Butcher’s.
Even so, this book pitches itself as a book about Alaska, which, as an Alaskan, I generally don’t trust. These sorts of books typically overlook the nuance of Alaska – they tend to ask Alaska to be the healer, the counselor, and the shelterer. Alaska’s nuance is already so often overlooked by broader cultural imaginings that reading texts that reaffirm those stereotypes often feels frustrating.
Butcher knows better than to make this mistake, but her relationship with Alaska is far different from Wiebe’s. This makes sense – Butcher, herself, is not an Alaskan and is not making that claim.
To think Butcher can provide the nuance I want is, then, too big an ask. But as an Alaskan reader, I long for Butcher, as someone from the contiguous U.S., to interact with Alaska as an Alaskan would.
But this lack of understanding is part of the point of Butcher’s being in Alaska: Butcher is taking this journey because she is looking for answers. She’s in a relationship that’s unkind and unhealthy for her. She’s in Alaska because she wants to be in Alaska, sure, but she’s also taking this trip because she wants to be a stronger woman. She’s in Alaska not just because of Alaska, but because of the care and hope and kindness that result from her relationship with Wiebe.
This book is the journey of Butcher’s seeing Alaska as she is journeying to revise her imaginings of people – real, imperfect, frustrating, beautiful. I have no doubt that she arrives there, and I hope that readers riding with her arrive there, too.
– Ariadne Will
