How Far She Went

The state of being lonesome is the inevitable road for the unnamed female protagonist in “Lonesome Road Blues.” She has no name, as if it does not matter who she is. The question both raised and answered—and lingering throughout the story like the drawn-out death of her husband—is whether anyone can truly know or be known by another. She arrives to the blues festival alone, “her eyes [...] quick, as though the color and movement around her were a feast and she had been long starved” (2). She is a widow who even in marriage was alone, the “pallor of the sickroom upon her” caused not from losing her husband (2), but by his prolonged exit.

Her intent is to rid herself of being alone by bringing Edmun Lovingood home, but in the few hours they share, they remain in separation and isolation, held together only by the markings of home and family that a hot shower and meal portend. In the end, she is content that nothing comes of their meeting—content in the solace that remaining lonesome keeps the imaginary hope alive, as if she herself were a blues song.