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An answer to a very personal question.

From Peter Jenkins: "For many years I have received letters and e-mails from many people asking about Barbara Jenkins, my former wife who so many came to know when reading the books A Walk Across America and The Walk West. Many of you "know her" from reading my first books. I met Barbara while walking across America and we married and she walked from New Orleans to Oregon together. We had three children together, Rebekah, Jed and Luke. In 1986, Barbara asked for a divorce. For several years there it was very difficult As almost everyone in this world knows divorce and the reasons for it are deeply personal and always painful. We divorced in 1987.

In January of 1989 I married Rita Jorgensen. She had two children from a previous marriage, Aaron and Brooke Davis. Rita and I have one child together, Julianne. Barbara remarried in 1990. We all get along well enough that Julianne will sometimes spend the night over at Barbara's, to be with her brothers and sister.

 

I understand some of you were very upset when Barbara and I divorced. Based on what you read you may have assumed we had a perfect relationship. We all know there is no such thing, yet we hope that there are. I understand and greatly appreciate that there is something about my writing that makes the reader feel like they know me. It is what all writers strive for , that their audience cares about what they write about and even about them and their family. So I thank you for that and hope this clarifies things that some have wanted to know.

Why does it seem like you disapear for years?

Peter Jenkins:  `You've been reading my books all these years, you read a new one and you are immediately ready to go on another adventure. Then I seem to disappear for a few years. I don't vanish. It just takes a long time to explore and then write about the most recent place I went looking for. 

I just didn't visit ALASKA, I moved there for a year and a half. My family came along.  We covered over twenty thousand miles, not that it matters how far you go. It's all about how deep you dive.

As always we lived with the people in order to understand the place we were.

The book is called LOOKING FOR ALASKA. Many are calling it my best book yet, but who knows about what others say, you be the judge.

In a recent Kirkus review of LOOKING FOR ALASKA the reviewer said this, "On an Alaskan high, he is unmatched by Jack London or Robert W. Service, and the result is as persuasive as an avalanche."

 If you're interested please go to the on your right and read or listen to a few of the excerpts I have chosen from  LOOKING FOR ALASKA.  I hope you feel that my `disappearance' was worth the wait in this throw away society where far too much is done too fast.'