It’s a familiar and meaningful rite of passage for thirteen-year-old Jewish boys – the community service, the Hebrew prayers, dancing with Grandma at the party afterwards – the Bar Mitzvah. But Yonah Biers-Ariel, a self-proclaimed atheist since the age of five, flatly refused to participate in what he considered a hollow exercise. So his father Matt, respectful of his son’s wishes but wanting to celebrate Yonah’s coming of age in the tradition of his Jewish culture, came up with an alternate plan: a ride of passage. By bicycle. Across the United States.
Author Matt Biers-Ariel will discuss and sign his new book The Bar Mitzvah and the Beast: One Family’s Cross-Country Ride of Passage by Bike on Sunday, November 18 at 2 PM at Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks. Both thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny, the book tells the story of the Biers-Ariel family’s epic 3,800-mile ride from the Pacific Coast to Washington, DC on their bicycles, including the “beast” of the title – the heavy, unpredictable tandem bike shared by Matt and his eight-year-old son Solomon. Armed with ibuprofen, gallons of Gatorade, and a global-warming petition, dad Matt, mom Djina, Yonah, and young Solomon pedaled across the heartland, encountering both the best and worst of American society along the way. In their seventy days of cycling through desert heat and steep mountain passes, in between the bickering and the blown tires, Matt and Yonah took time to debate the larger questions: the existence (or nonexistence) of God, the relevance of tradition to modern life, and what it means to be Jewish.
The Bar Mitzvah and the Beast is a warm and funny memoir of one ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey by bike, and an enlightening exploration of the bond between a spiritual, nature-loving father and his ambivalent, computer game-loving son. You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this book – but having a teenager (or having been one) helps!
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Author Matt Biers-Ariel grew up in Tarzana, and graduated from Taft High School, UC Berkeley, and Hebrew Union College before settling in Davis, where he teaches high school English. He’s the author of three books of Jewish short stories and a Jewish naturalist guide, and has done commentary for All Things Considered and the Perspectives series on KQED radio in the Bay Area.
Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks is located in the Westlake Promenade, at the corner of Thousand Oaks Blvd. and Westlake Blvd. For more information about the Matt Biers-Ariel signing, call the store at (805) 446-2820.