The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean Author: Visit Amazon's Philip Caputo Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0805094466 | Format: EPUB
The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean Description
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Miles traveled: 8,314. Vistas condemned: wind turbine farms. Vistas endorsed: the Natchez Trace and the Alaska Highway. Lesson learned: don’t drive a trailer where you can’t get it out. Such were Caputo’s concrete experiences on a 2011 road trip in search of answers to a more ethereal question, What unifies America? That query, if already asked by literary roadsters like Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck, bears repeating by writers of any stature, whether unknown or, like Caputo, renowned. Looking at age 70, Caputo felt a bucket-list impetus to drive the furthest border-to-border route in America: Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. With his pickup truck towing a symbol of highway wanderlust, an Airstream trailer, Caputo convinced his two dogs and, perhaps less quickly, his wife to climb aboard. Vowing to avoid interstates and motels, he loosely followed the historic route of Lewis and Clark. Injecting misadventures into the narrative, Caputo recounts an overland voyage that emphasizes the people he meets: Christian evangelicals; volunteers helping tornado-struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama; a Missouri farmer; residents of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; and an assortment of Alaskan eccentrics. Pithily capturing their characters and opinions about the state of America, Caputo snares reading devotees of a classic American theme, the road trip. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A new book from the Pulitzer Prize–winning Caputo, famed for his soldier’s memoir of the Vietnam conflict, A Rumor of War (1977), is always an event. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
"It is a joy it is to read these stories. I mean that: pure joy. The Longest Road is the best thing to come along since Blue Highways and Travels With Charley."—Doug Stanton
"An] engaging travelogue of a remarkable journey packed with plenty of intriguing tidbits for armchair travelers."—Boston Globe
"The ultimate road trip." —The Denver Post
"A perfect vacation book that’s funny and erudite at the same time."—New Haven Register
"A new book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Caputo…is always an event. Pithily capturing their characters and opinions about the state of America, Caputo snares reading devotees of a classic American theme, the road trip."—Booklist, starred review
"[Caputo] keeps the narrative moving with his observant eye and mordant sense of humor."—The New York Times Book Review
"Entertaining …Provocative summer read."—Miami Herald
"Caputo’s long haul across the country is a worthy addition to your vicarious travel plans."—Washington Independent Review of Books
"It’s a good ride, and a good read." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"This reporter has more stamina in him than your average 21-year-old…Caputo creates captivating portraits of a wide variety of communities."—Kirkus
"A continental tale that is always engaging and frequently reassuring."—PW
"A new travelogue for a new millennium."—Kansas City Star
"You will enjoy Caputo’s road adventure across America."—The Bismarck Tribune
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (July 16, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805094466
- ISBN-13: 978-0805094466
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Primarily a journalist and a writer of novels, Philip Caputo wanders off the beaten path smack into the Travel genre with his latest book The Longest Road. He takes us on a road trip from Key West, Florida to Deadhorse, Alaska on the Arctic Ocean, or, if you like. from the southernmost point to northernmost point of the United States -- that one would be able to drive between.
The 'longest road' trip was an idea that festered a while with Caputo. It germinated way back in 1996 when the author, on a hunting and fishing expedition up on Barter Island near Deadhorse, mused over the idea of Inuit children at the island's only school pledging allegiance to the same flag as Cuban-American children living on another island: his old stomping grounds of Key West some six thousand miles southeast. For reasons unknown to Caputo, the notion of the transverse journey "went dormant", burrowed away "cicada-like" for fourteen years. But he can pinpoint just what woke up the idea: mortality. The death of his father, a traveling journeyman who had always inspired his own inner nomad, in 2010 quickened some biological Timex within him. At age 71 there was no time like the present for an epic journey.
So much for the premise, how about the purpose. Besides the obvious novelty of geographical conquest, just what is the underlying goal here? Is there something the author wants to accomplish or discover on this trek? Well, it turns out there is a question he's been dying to have answered. It's a poll-like question: "What holds us together?" What is it that unites our great nation from coast to coast and from Key West to Deadhorse? Caputo is determined to slog across the deep south, the breadbasket, the Pacific Northwest on up through Canada and back into Seward's Folly to find out.
I selected this book because I have a big case of wanderlust, and I knew that the author would offer plenty of tips and tidbits about traveling across America. He and his wife and two dogs went from south to north, and they traveled pulling an Airstream trailer named Ethel. We plan to travel from east to west in a Toyota Highlander and stay in motels. Caputo and his wife learned so much that they became what he called "roads scholars." I learned quite a lot about this great county and its people and places from Caputo's experiences.
Basically a travel journal with hundreds of facts and interesting details, this book is a must read for anyone setting traveling across America. Caputo and Leslie left Key West, Florida and ended their trip in Deadhorse, Alaska, a town that he calls "the strangest and ugliest town in the country, so ugly that it's fascinating." Along the way, they met and spent time with quite a variety of folks of all ages, socioeconomic statuses, and races. From doing some relief work in Alabama to visiting the Custer Battlefield, their journey was quite interesting.
While there's too much richness in the book to do the stories justice, I nevertheless want to mention a few things that further kindled my travel yen. Caputo calls the Nebraska Sandhills one of the "lonesomest regions in the country," and his wife fell for the Ozarks. "Have you noticed how ever noticed how every square inch is covered in green?" she asked him. Caputo's conversations with people as diverse as Cole in South Dakota to Wiren in Chicken, Alaska reminded me of how awesome and varied America's people are.
Another plus to The Longest Road are the frequent references to writers such as Steinbeck William Heat Moon, and Walt Whitman.
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