''A Prayer for Travelers'' is the debut novel of American writer Ruchika Tomar, published in 2019 by Riverhead Books. The novel won the 2020
PEN/Hemingway Award.
It is a
mystery and
coming-of-age story In genre studies, a coming-of-age story is a genre of literature, theatre, film, and video game that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, or "coming of age". Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal ...
, revolving around the friendship between two young women, Cale and Penny, who live in a small town near the
California–
Nevada border, and the sudden disappearance of one of them.
Reception
Adrienne Gaffney in the ''
San Francisco Chronicle'' described the book as "a portrait of two young women coming of age in a world full of hard men
..where the brutality of the landscape is matched by the circumstances that her characters live in". Chris Vola on ''
PopMatters'' gave a rating of 8/10 to the book, highlighting "the visual world that Tomar conjures, a marvelously drawn background of
creosote and
rabbitbrush
Rabbitbrush is a common name for shrubs, principally of the western United States, in three related genera of the family Asteraceae:
* '' Chrysothamnus'' — about seven species in the United States, including Greene's rabbitbrush
* ''Ericame ...
,
..with enough personality to rival any of the ragged souls who populate
..gas stations, seedy bars, and hotel rooms." while at the same time suggesting that "ome of Tomar’s stylistic choices leave something to be desired".
The judges of PEN/Hemingway, awarding the book as best debut novel in 2020, called it "a remarkable piece of writing, astute in style and structure and also in the story that it tells."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prayer for Travelers, A
2019 debut novels
American mystery novels
American bildungsromans
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning works