The American Road

Before there's the American dream of owning a home--there's the dream of driving cross country.   The ancient Greeks had the Odyssey, modern Americans have roads to drive and a continent to cross.  Driving from Washington to Seattle, down the Pacific coast and back along the southern route was a personal milestone.  Everyone should do it once.  My grandfather did it in 1919 and I did it in 1988.  The experience guided my book buying.  In honor of the Fourth, here are some of my books on the great American right of passage. 


1.  On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957).   My only fiction in the group but it had to be included.  Captures the spirit of driving cross country and ends with a homage to the dark fields of the Republic.   Bought new.

2.  Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 miles on the Roads and Interstates of American..., Robert Sullivan (2006).  A greatest hits collection of all the best cross country driving stories.  Sullivan himself drove country two dozen times before writing this book.  Bought new. 

 

3.  Roads: Driving America's Great Highways, Larry McMurtry (2000).  Best known for his dozens of western novels, McMurtry put his prodigious writing skills to work.  McMurtry drives multiple routes, east to west and north to south but what is endearing is that he ignores I-95.  Bought new. 


 

4.  Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945, Warren James Belasco (1981).  A historical study of how the earliest Americans traveled across country.  Intended to use it as research for my own cross country manuscript, Ten Cent Trail.  Bought used but can't remember where. 


 

5.  Open Road: A Celebration of the American Highway, Phil Patton (1986).  Half historical study, half celebration of American love of cross country driving.  Bought used at the State Department book store.

 
6.  Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, Tom Lewis (1997).   In 1919, Colonel Dwight Eisenhower lead an Army convoy cross country.  Over thirty years later, he lead the effort to build the largest engineered structure ever built--the U.S. Interstate Highway system.  Bought new.

 

7.  Overland by Auto in 1913: Diary of a Family Tour from California to Indiana, Estella M. Copeland (1981).   An individual account of the challenges of driving across country when it was mostly wagon trails.  Bought used from an antique story in Warrenton, VA.


8.  The Distance to the Moon: A Road Trip into the American Dream, James Morgan (1999).   New ways to slice and dice the cross country experience--Morgan drives across country in a Porsche.  Just wish this book had a map of the author's route.  Bought used at BJ's Books in Warrenton, VA.

 

9.  Through Painted Desert: Light and Beauty on the Open Road, Donald Miller (2005).   In my reading pile so no review yet.  I do know that Miller crosses country in a VW camping van.  Bought used but can't remember where.