A flaky mom, restless with unrealized dreams. A wise child, stubbornly asserting the reality principle. An old car and an open road at the end of which all the problems they're running away from reassert themselves, largely in the form of feckless males.
It is one of feminism's Ur-legends, the stuff of countless contemporary novels and films. The question is, How do you color outside its lines, give the story a little waywardness, while at the same time imparting to it the honest weight of felt experience?
The answer to that question may be: Keep it authentic, keep it...