Uneasy Rider
The Interstate Way of Knowledge
-
- 7,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
"Engagingly curious open-mindedness . . . an amiable deadpan worthy of Richard Ford." --Pico Iyer, Time
in this offbeat and original road book, cultural observer Mike Bryan takes issue with the traditional idea that the "real" America is to be found somewhere on our scenic backroads. He argues instead that it is right out in the open on the interstates, and he travels the big highways of the Southwest to prove the point.
Bryan engages motel operators, state troopers, and traveling salesmen. He discovers the world's only "No Smoking" ranch; hobnobs with elusive novelist Cormac McCarthy; spars with Bob Sundown, who prefers his covered wagon to any car. Between encounters he contemplates everything from America's pioneering spirit to its history of road building. In the end, he discovers that the interstates, far from producing the homogenous society he feared, nourish a rich community of eccentrics. And that ultimately, as this deeply romantic travelogue shows, there is no such thing as an "ordinary American."
"A wonderful writer, he manages to transmit his enjoyment of the places and people he encounters." --Austin American-Statesman
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Written as an antidote to those on-the-road books that purport to find the "real" America hidden along its back roads and byways, this upbeat account claims to have found the real thing right out there in plain sight along the interstate highways that run between Dallas and California. Bryan, who is from Texas and has written about baseball (Baseball Lives) and golf (Dogleg Madness), says that most road-book writers seek to find "the rare, the poignant, the quaint, the throwback, the eccentric, the forgotten, and the arcane," while what he found is "the asphalt and concrete wave of the future," and it's not that bad. That includes--within a few miles of each other in Texas--a snake farm, a religious theme park, a flag service car company that escorts extra-wide vehicles and a booming stud farm. Making his way west, Bryan rides with state troopers along a stretch of I-20 near Abilene, visits a town so small it can't afford to put up a sign on the interstate but is famous locally for being the place New York City dumps its sludge, and talks to everyone in sight: truckers, motel workers (desk clerks turn out to be terrible gossips), toll collectors, hitchhikers, border patrolmen, road repair crews, even a man riding in a covered wagon. He visits trailer parks, a courtroom, a dairy farm, hot springs and--in El Paso--the reclusive novelist Cormac McCarthy. There's also room for a bit of his own autobiography, including a surprising amount about his low sperm count, and a discussion of JFK's assassination. This lively book takes some unexpected turns, and although Bryan claims anyone can get into a good conversation at a truck stop diner, the ones he finds are especially entertaining. Instructive, too. FYI: Bryan praises McCarthy's prose but clams up about their meeting at a Mexican restaurant, except to mention that both fear for the future of good writing.
