The Road to Tender Hearts

The novel opens with an epigraph containing a quote from the iconic road trip film National Lampoon’s Vacation and another from Annie Hartnett’s father, Paul, who inspired the character of PJ. During a family road trip through Ireland, Paul says to his children, “Shut up and look out the window,” echoing the sentiment expressed in the National Lampoon quote: “Why aren’t we flying? Because getting there is half the fun.” Both epigraphs emphasize the importance of the journey over the destination. Though PJ undertakes the trip to Arizona in the hope of reconnecting with his lost love, the real, transformative power of the trip lies in what is learned along the way.

This emphasis on the journey is a common element of road trip novels as a genre, but Hartnett challenges this genre’s conventions by juxtaposing this conventional element with a set of characters and themes in some ways antithetical to those of most road trip novels. The American road trip novel, as exemplified by classic works such as Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1955), Walter M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), typically centers youthful characters in search of escape, freedom, and self-discovery. On the Road, for example, is a roman à clef (a novel in which real people are represented by fictional characters) in which Sal Paradise (Kerouac) and his friend Dean Moriarty (Kerouac’s friend and fellow Beat writer Neal Cassady), embark on a series of impromptu cross-country drives in search of adventure and new experiences. Both men are young and seeking escape from the mundane responsibilities of middle-class life. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, another roman à clef strongly influenced by On the Road, protagonist Raoul Duke and his attorney Doctor Gonzo drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, consuming large quantities of LSD and experiencing the world around them through drug-induced hallucinations. Like National Lampoon’s Vacation, Hartnett’s novel challenges these conventions of youthful rebellion and escape with the forced proximity of a family trip. Instead of leaving their troubles behind, the characters carry their pain with them every mile. Memories of Kate, the weight of trauma, and the search for belonging all come along for the ride. The open road doesn’t erase their pain but forces them to face it.

Sixty-three-year-old PJ Halliday’s journey toward the ironically named Tender Hearts Retirement Community frames the road trip as a final grasp at romantic possibility rather than youthful rebellion. Pancakes literalizes the mortality that shadows this journey, transforming the genre from celebration of limitless possibility into meditation on regret and the courage to pursue happiness in life’s final chapters. Hartnett employs dark comedy to balance the weighty themes of grief, aging, and trauma, as each stop on the trip reveals the fragility of life and the enduring power of love. The absurdist premise of a death-predicting cat accompanying this makeshift family provides emotional relief while reflecting life’s absurd continuities. The novel demonstrates the continued vitality of the road trip genre by expanding who gets to take to the road and why. Hartnett demonstrates that movement and journey can still create conditions for serendipitous connections, even when travelers are processing trauma, navigating caregiving responsibilities, and confronting mortality. The road remains a place for transformation, not through escape from responsibility, but through the more complex work of recovery and reconnection to self (Blitman, Jason, host. “Annie Hartnett (The Road to Tender Hearts) feat. Debbie Millman, Guest Gay Reader.” Gays Reading, 29 Apr. 2025).