Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip - Paperback

by Irena Smith (Author)

In this lyrical and artfully woven memoir, a short road trip to California's Central Coast becomes an epic journey through family history, loss, and connection.

When three generations of women--a Gen X narrator, her seventy-seven-year-old mother, and her twenty-two-year-old Gen Z daughter--set out for a quick trip to California's Central Coast, what begins as a road trip soon transforms into something far richer: a modern-day Odyssey. Over the course of three days, the three women brave a severe winter storm, encounter ravenous ostriches, walk through an enchanted light exhibit, binge-watch White Lotus, hunt for coffee with plant-based milk, bicker, reconcile, and share stories.

Troika braids the narrative of a three-day road trip with the longer strands of migration, memory, and motherhood, creating a layered meditation on distance traveled--geographic, generational, and emotional. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey that traverses the landscapes of identity and family history and stretches from the horrors of the second world war and an escape from Soviet Russia to adolescence and motherhood in the suburbs of Silicon Valley. As the narrative swerves from heartbreak to hilarity, from Homeric detours and Russian proverbs to internet memes, it weaves together an intimate, poignant, and darkly funny meditation on how we get from where we were to where we are--and what we carry with us along the way.

Author Biography

Irena Smith is a college admissions expert and the author of the award-winning memoir The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. Born in Soviet Russia and raised in the United States, she weaves her experiences of migration, generational expectations, motherhood, and memory into her writing. Irena lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, a rotating cast of children, and two cats who are working on resolving their differences. You can find more of Irena's writing on Substack at @irenasmith.