This book is essentially a road book but it is interspersed with accounts of a horrific crash that took place in the Northwest Territories in 1972. I remember reading about that crash which only the pilot, Marten Hartwell, survived and he did that by consuming the flesh of one of the bodies. Rosie, a half-Inuit girl, who is living in Yellowknife in 1972 is obsessed by the crash and especially the young Inuit boy, Davidie, who survived the crash but died of starvation.

Tanya Price is a few years older than Rosie. She's been working as the secretary for a hostel for native kids who go to school in Yellowknife. She decides she has enough money to hit the road south before winter comes. She asks Rosie to come along with her and Rosie agrees. Rosie has been living in the hostel since her brother was put in jail. Their mother and then their grandmother died and their father is down south somewhere. So the two of them hit the road in Tanya's Rambler which serves as their sleeping accommodations as well as their means of transportation.

Tanya and Rosie are polar opposites in terms of personality but the friendship seems to work. Rosie combines a sweet nature with spiritual knowledge and feelings. She really deserves better than Tanya for a friend. Tanya likes booze and sex and, although she is supposed to be the more wordly of the pair, she really shows bad judgement at times. Tanya sometimes resents feeling responsible for Rosie but Rosie is such a genuinely good person that Tanya doesn't stay mad for long. All the way to San Francisco they drive in the car but then the car gets damaged and they don't have the money to pay for repairs. After that they hitch or take public transportation. When they finally get to Mazatlan in Mexico they settle into a cheap room and stay. They have to go to Mexico City though when Tanya's traveller's cheques are stolen. Faced with dwindling money supplies they are interested when a handsome Mexican man tells them they can get jobs at a newly opened resort in Belize.

The blurb on the back of the book ties the story to the plane crash:
Trapped deep in the jungles of newly independent Belize, they, like Hartwell, are forced to make impossible decisions in order to survive.
So you just know this book isn't going to end happily. I'll leave it to the next reader to learn the exact ending. Suffice it to say I had some bad dreams after reading this book.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to others but be forewarned that it is not an easy book to read. ( )