Reading Bernard Cooper's Maps to Anywhere is like eating a large, juicy hamburger. You need to grip it with two hands and devour it. Trying to eat it with one hand while driving or doing some other task is out of the question because the best parts would fall out and end up in your lap. No, you have to give it all of your attention so that every flavor burst into your mouth. It is the kind of savory meal that inspires you to become a cook so that you could make something as delicious for other people. At least, that's what this experience was like for me.
The short essays that make up the first half of this book may seem unattached, but ultimately point to the long essay at the end, "The Wind Did It". The first nine vignettes are written as if random bursts of memories or thoughts that drift through the author's mind. They illustrate how observant and creative Cooper is. An example of this is, "All week long, my mind has been filled with baked potatoes, aluminum-covered ingots, their plumes of steam obscuring everything, except my affection for friends." (pg. 23) The language he uses allows us to feel his unusual desire for potatoes but also reflects his closeness to friends. By looking at passages like this, we can see that one of the main themes of Maps to Anywhere is his relationship with other people.
Cooper's most important relationship in his life is his parents. This is most seen in the long essay which had been foreshadowed in most of the shorter ones. In the first essay we see him struggling with his name which had been picked out by his mother. He writes, "Even my mother had trouble with my name; calling me home at dusk, she's stand in the doorway and shout the name of my older brothers- Richard, Robert, Ronald!- before she remembered mine." (pg. 4) This shows a sort of distance between him and his mother. This distance can be seen on page 62 in the longer essay. "Otherwise she was far away, tanning on a stretch of sand." Because of the hardship she went through raising a dying son, she was often in another world, dreaming of the better places (like the Moulin Rouge). Because of this, she did not give much attention to Bernard. One time that the family was all happily together is when they all ate potatoes together, pointing back to his obsession with potatoes; we understand now that it's like a link to his mother's rare affection. We get an idea of their broken relationship when in the earlier essay he wrote that if he were to write a book about her it would be titled "Beacons Burning Down". The hazel eyes of the woman in Maps to Anywhere also points forward to the hazel eyes of his mother; he feels annoyance yet a strange attachment towards them both.
Cooper's relationship with his father is much deeper. After his father's divorce with Esther, the two spend a lot of bonding time together. At this time, Cooper realizes the similarities between them. He also mentions how they are both starting to look and sound alike. In the short essay, "The Miracle Chicken", we see that his father has a scrap book of all of the bizarre cases that he has ever been a part of. In a way, Cooper is making his own scrapbook (this book) with all of the bizarre stories that fill his life. "Capiche" shows that he has the same fantasies of far away places that his father does (who wanted to go to Machu Picu in the long essay). As he gets older, Cooper recognizes himself in his father and appreciates the love of the bizarre that his father has given him. Overall, that's one juicy burger.
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