Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace
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Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Andra Watkins (Author, Narrator), Word Hermit Press LLC (Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 974 ratings
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Can an epic adventure succeed without a hero? Andra Watkins needed a wingman to help her become the first living person to walk the historic 444-mile Natchez Trace, as the pioneers did. She planned to walk 15 miles a day for 34 days. After striking out with everyone in her life, she was left with her disinterested 80-year-old father. And his gas. The sleep apnea machine and self-scratching. Sharing a bathroom with a man whose gut obliterated his aim.

As Watkins trudged America's forgotten highway, she lost herself in despair and pain. Nothing happened according to plan, and her tenuous connection to her father started to unravel. Through arguments and laughter, tears and fried chicken, they fought to rebuild their relationship before it was too late. In Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, Watkins invites listeners to join her dysfunctional family adventure in a humorous and heartbreaking memoir that asks if one can really turn "I wish I had" into "I'm glad I did".

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  1. Listening Length
    6 hours and 42 minutes
  2. Author
    Andra Watkins
  3. Narrator
    Andra Watkins
  4. Audible release date
    December 9, 2015
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Word Hermit Press LLC
  7. ASIN
    B0182UN3LM
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 6 hours and 42 minutes
Author Andra Watkins
Narrator Andra Watkins
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date December 09, 2015
Publisher Word Hermit Press LLC
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0182UN3LM
Best Sellers Rank #214,885 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,477 in Travel & Tourism
#3,333 in Hiking & Camping Excursion Guides (Books)
#16,964 in Biographies & Memoirs (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
974 global ratings
Making memories is at the heart of this book
4 Stars
Making memories is at the heart of this book
This book was in the sports section at the library, though I'm not sure why? The title grabbed me as both my parents have passed in the last four years. I still look at my dad's life for guidance. Andra is a gifted storyteller, and I enjoyed her story a lot. I am interested in reading another book she's written. I didn't know much about Merriweather Lewis before this book. Thank you for the illumination. I also hadn't heard of the Trace either. I'm a New Jerseyan transplant living in a suburb of Atlanta. One day before finishing the book, I passed a subdivision named Natchez Trace. I turned my car around and snapped a picture. Thanks for the heartfelt message, lessons shared, and the joy shared in your book.
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Top reviews from the United States

Angela_Amman
5.0 out of 5 stars “Because I was where I needed to be.” (from A. Watkins, Not Without My Father)
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
In March, Andra Watkins published a book, a feat I admire in and of itself. To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis is haunting and hopeful, and the Natchez Trace played a huge part in the story. With the novel’s release, Watkins made the decision to walk the entire Natchez Trace — a walk, she’s reminded several times during her undertaking, “no one does.”

I loved To Live Forever, and I was thrilled to hear Watkins would be publishing a memoir about her journey up the Natchez Trace — all 444 miles of a walk that started in Mississippi and ended in Tennessee. Her trek wasn’t something she could do alone. In order to walk the Trace in six weeks, she needed someone to hold down the virtual fort for her — someone to help check in at bed and breakfasts, someone to meet her at mile markers at the end of her walk each day.

That person was her father.

Not Without My Father isn’t simply a tale of Watkins’ walk.

Of course, the trek up the Trace is a central focus of the book. From the unexpected sleet — remember 2013 – 2014 was the winter that never, ever wanted to end — and the perfect beauty of a hopping robin to the ravaged blisters from the repetitive motion of the walk, Watkins’ accomplishment shouldn’t be reduced to the emotional journey of her six-week undertaking. Walking fifteen miles a day, for six straight days, then resting a day and starting again, is a physical feat requiring tenacity and utter obstinance.

Despite the aches and pains of the physical trial, those aren’t the details that will echo through my thoughts when I remember Not Without My Father.

Watkins confronts many things during her walk. Mental, physical, and emotional obstacles are impossible to ignore when you meet them on your own two feet. Family dynamics play an enormous part in the memoir. Roy Watkins is out of shape and ornery, ready to verbally spar with his daughter over everything from climbing stairs to signing books with her swollen fingers. Yet he is the one who sells her book to anyone who will listen to his pitch, the one person who sees her each day, the one who sees in her eyes that she isn’t going to quit.

The book itself is a lovely read, each section named with a song. There’s something about a playlist that makes a road trip all the more appealing, though most of us will make our next 400 plus mile trip in a car and not on our tired, sore legs. Roy Watkins’ own words can be found in sections, and his impressions of the trip — and of his daughter — add depth, perspective, tenderness, and quiet wit to the tale. One of the threads that weaves through Not Without My Father is that Roy Watkins is a storyteller, and his voice is an expected harmony to Andra Watkins’ own storytelling.

I will not walk the Natchez Trace. But I hope to channel the strength and spirit Watkins gathers as she makes her way north. I want to recognize the things I fear and face them anyway, on feet that are tired and sore and still walking until they take me where I need to be.
4 people found this helpful
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Cynthia K. Robertson
4.0 out of 5 stars Well written, but I wanted more about the Natchez Trace...
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017
Verified Purchase
Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace by Andra Watkins appealed to me because I have always wanted to learn more about the Natchez Trace. I’d also like to see it someday. While Watkins has written a moving book, it is more about her relationship with her father, and less about the history of the Natchez Trace.

Andra Watkins wrote a novel about explorer Meriwether Lewis. This gives her the idea to walk the Trace as Lewis died there under mysterious circumstances. Watkins is no athlete. “In high school, I couldn’t run a mile, score a goal or hit a ball. Why did I think I could walk more than a half-marathon every day for a month at forty-four?” She also asks her father to be her “wing-man.” Watkins and her dad have always had a contentious relationship. “Dad and I shouted down my teens, harangued through my twenties, and seethed away my thirties. For most of my life, our every interaction disintegrated into hurtful words and pregnant silences.” She is hoping for a new understanding during the trip. The plan is that Watkins will walk the Trace from March 1 to April 3, traveling 15 miles a day. While she suffers from blisters and other minor hardships, she’s not exactly roughing it. In fact, her dad is always around in his car, taking her to hotels at the end of each day, bringing her meals, etc. It’s not like walking the Appalachian Trail and I got more than a little tired of all her crying. But it was also eye opening for Watkins to see how fragile her elderly father had become.

The one thing that didn’t get enough attention was the Natchez Trace. Today, we mostly think of it as a federal highway. But parts of the original trail can still be seen in places. It definitely has a rich history, going back many centuries. Today the Trace is “Almost 450 miles of highway ringed by farms and swampland, its sides were eroded canyons in some places. Ghostly buffalo herds competed with the earliest Native American spirits, Spanish Conquistadors, French missionaries and warring armies along paved federal parkway.” One sad event that Watkins witnesses is how the Trace is suffering today because of budget cuts and neglect.

I did enjoy Not Without My Father. Andra writes that “I walked almost 400 miles to find my father. The Natchez Trace was the portal.” I just wish there had been more about the Trace.
2 people found this helpful
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Karen J
3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed thIs story as I was training to walk a Half Marathon
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2015
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I would recommend to a friend....Enjoyed the story and it held my interest. I did have trouble getting a visual of some of the descriptions and had to read some twice. I live near the Trace in Tennessee so it was especially fun to read.
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Debra
5.0 out of 5 stars A well-written and deeply reflective memoir
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2015
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Author Andra Watkins tells of walking the Natchez trace, all 444-miles of it, to promote her first novel, To Live Forever, An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis. She is led by a desire to better understand her main character and to relate known history with shadows of heroes and outlaws who infamously lived and died along this legendary highway. The journey is itself a captivating story. But it’s only a part. The author chooses to share the experience with her elderly and not-in-such-great-health father. Roy, who will be her wingman, is an extrovert with a line and a story for anyone, meeting people along the way and promoting his daughter’s book. He has never met a stranger, and every aspect of this journey is made more colorful because of his range of humor, tenderness, stubbornness, and at times sweet bewilderment as to why his daughter would put herself to such a test of endurance.Father and daughter have a deep love for each other that isn't evidenced with easy openness, but this shared experience offers an opportunity to explore what it might mean for the daughter to better understand her father, and the father to see his daughter as the fully capable woman that she is.I loved this book and have thought about the many insights the author shares in this well-written memoir. I hope the author will continue to write from her own rich experiences. She tells a story with warmth and conviction. I loved reading this book.
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Top reviews from other countries

Malcolm Books
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in Canada on December 19, 2019
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I enjoyed the book very much - easy to read, full of emotion and grittiness and a good introduction to many aspects of life which are different to mine. Thank you, Andra.
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Kate 'griz' Pill
5.0 out of 5 stars Where Do I Start? xoxoxo
Reviewed in Australia on November 12, 2017
Verified Purchase
I won't offer spoilers, and nothing I write could possibly do this piece justice. Andra Watkins story resonates very strongly for me. I had this memoir for a while before I read it and really, this was the perfect time to fall into it. Watkins writing is skillfully woven and reaches out to the reader on many levels. She weaves stories of herself, her father and her mother, into her journey to follow the footsteps of Meriweather. This book is a beautiful read for many reasons. I've even copied quotes from it! Thank you, Andra Watkins :) You made my heart smile :)
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H. Whiting
5.0 out of 5 stars In beautiful, descriptive language
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2015
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In beautiful, descriptive language, Andra Watkins does not just tell us about her 444 mile walk of the Natchez Trace, she SHOWS us. Feeling like we're catching up with her at the end of each 15 mile day's hike, this book is more than solely an account of a gruelling and inspiring trek through the contrasting landscape and terrain of three American states. While, outwardly, going on the walk was intended to help to promote Andra's novel (To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis), her inward desire was to reconnect with her father during this real life adventure. The literary result is a fearlessly honest and authentic story of a father and daughter with equally strong personalities. Through clashing and gaining a greater understanding of each other would the love and admiration we can see they have for each other ultimately shine through?

This book has the power to touch your heart, make you laugh out loud and bring tears to your eyes. I couldn't wait to find out what each new page held but, at the same time, I didn't want the book to end!
5 people found this helpful
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Mary
4.0 out of 5 stars It certainly portrays a dysfunctional family - of which they have taken the best of relationships and made it work for them
Reviewed in Canada on December 21, 2016
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Interesting Book. It certainly portrays a dysfunctional family - of which they have taken the best of relationships and made it work for them.
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Cruise Queen
4.0 out of 5 stars Not so much a travel account... much ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2016
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Not so much a travel account... much more ... The author tells us of her relationship with her parents ,,, how her father is supporting her on this massive trek, he's not a well man but she needs a support she can rely on , will her dad stand upto the challenge ? I really en joyed this and felt uplifted when the book came to an end .
One person found this helpful
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