Martin Bauman was twenty-three and restless when he embarked on a solo bicycle trek across Canada. It was a ride that came in the wake of his father's sudden depression, his cousin's suicide, and the stirring up of his own childhood of buried memories. He had billed the 7,000-kilometre journey as a mission to encourage people--men, especially--to talk about depression. It was ironic that he was so reluctant to talk about his own. In 'Hell of a Ride,' Bauman--named one of Canada's emergent authors by the RBC Taylor Prize in 2020--brings his sharp reporting instincts and lyrical prose to explore a timely question: how much of the past do we carry with us? And how much of our fate is ours to choose? A spiritual successor to the bicycle-bound escapades of Kate Harris's 'Lands of Lost Borders,' with an emotional candour reminiscent of Antonio Michael Downing's 'Saga Boy' and Greg Gilhooly's 'I Am Nobody,' Bauman's 'Hell of a Ride' takes its readers on a journey from the rain-slicked streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the hills of St. John's, Newfoundland, through encounters with couch-surfing swingers, pot-smoking Maritimers, runaway army veterans, prairie farmers, steely-eyed birdwatchers, and Kiwi empty-nesters. Along the way, Bauman interrogates the past through reflections on home, family secrets, and belonging: How to feel at home in a place one always itches to leave? And if one is always on the move, how to find a home at all? Heartfelt and uplifting, 'Hell of a Ride' is a coming-of-age tale of a son's search to connect with his father and also come to terms with his own past. It is a clarion call for deep community, an ode to forgiveness -- of oneself and others -- and a love letter to the call of adventure.