The national road : dispatches from a changing America /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This collection of "eloquent essays that examine the relationship between the American landscape and the national character" serves to remind us that despite our differences we all belong to the same land ( Publishers Weekly ).

"How was it possible, I wondered, that all of this American land--in every direction--could be fastened together into a whole?"

What does it mean when a nation accustomed to moving begins to settle down, when political discord threatens unity, and when technology disrupts traditional ways of building communities? Is a shared soil enough to reinvigorate a national spirit?

From the embaattled newsrooms of small town newspapers to the pornography film sets of the Los Angeles basin, from the check-out lanes of Dollar General to the holy sites of Mormonism, from the nation's highest peaks to the razed remains of a cherished home, like a latter-day Woody Guthrie, Tom Zoellner takes to the highways and byways of a vast land in search of the soul of its people.

By turns nostalgic and probing, incisive and enraged, Zoellner's reflections reveal a nation divided by faith, politics, and shifting economies, but--more importantly--one united by a shared sense of ownership in the common land.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Your Land (p. 3)
• Mormon Historical Sites at Night (p. 13)
• Drive (p. 37)
• Spillville (p. 59)
• The National Road (p. 77)
• The Whole Hoop of the World (p. 89)
• Late City Final (p. 113)
• Villages (p. 139)
• The Valley (p. 147)
• Welcome to Dirtytown (p. 167)
• Searchlight (p. 191)
• King Philip's Shadow (p. 227)
• Home Ground (p. 241)
• At the End There Will Be Strangers (p. 247)
• Acknowledgments (p. 259)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This anthology of beautifully constructed, loosely connected travelogs and reflections centers on movement and mutability, as Los Angeles Review of Books editor Zoellner explores the imprint of the American people on one another and the land. Zoellner was fortified for this project by his love for driving; he calculates the equivalent of more than 30 solo coast-to-coast trips plus journeys into all 48 contiguous states over 20 years, barely stopping at times for a few hours' sleep in his car. Here he considers all kinds of topics, from his quirky quest to climbing the highest point in every state to the decline of local newspapers and mom-and-pop stores. He visits the Czech immigrant town of Spillville, IA, as well as tiny municipalities like St. Louis, where the main industry is traffic tickets. The poignant final chapter sees Zoellner standing witness (after an all-night drive, of course) at the demolition of his grandmother's hand-built home of 61 years. VERDICT Empathetic, candid, and curious, Zoellner has built an eclectic, eloquent guide to the social and physical landscapes of America.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus

Publishers Weekly Review

Journalist Zoellner (Island on Fire) draws on his extensive travels across the U.S. over the past 30 years in these eloquent essays that examine the relationship between the American landscape and the national character. He sketches the history of American migrations, including the Mormon Church's push westward and the relocation of millions of African Americans from the South to other parts of the country, and notes declining mobility rates over the past half-century. ("A country on the move seems to be more reluctant than ever to pick up and go, even when prospects are grim.") Zoellner's investigation into how people are shaped by the places where they live and work includes visits to the set of a pornographic filmmaker in the San Fernando Valley and the birthplace of Mormon leader Joseph Smith in Vermont, and reminiscences of his work at newspapers in Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In the final essay, he details the painful experience of watching workers demolish his deceased grandmother's "hand-built ranch house" in Arizona to make room for a new family's "rambling faux-Florentine palace." Zoellner laces this rambling yet incisive account with perceptive character sketches and astute observations. The result is a poignant reminder that in America, "constant change is our blotchy and beautiful inheritance." Agent: Brettne Bloom, the Book Group. (Oct.)

Kirkus Book Review

America is a vast and daunting prospect, and Zoellner thirsts for more. Longing for a kind of national cultural citizenship, the author knows that absorbing even the barest fraction of a country's everyday majesty, and tribulation, is the work of a lifetime. He seems up to the task. In addition to his seven previous books, Zoellner, the politics editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, teaches at Chapman University and Dartmouth College. The principal inspiration for this collection was journalist John Gunther's Inside U.S.A. (1947), which Zoellner calls "a staggering achievement and the best tome about this nation ever written." Taking on a similar task, Zoellner wonders how an increasingly fractured nation of such disparate lands and peoples remains united, however tenuously, in a consensus informed by the Constitution. The author's diverse, penetrating essays, some previously published, can only answer that question in part, but his effort is valiant, deeply moral, and often moving, based on observations gleaned from 30 years of crisscrossing the country, frequently by car. Zoellner grasps all the touchstones and knows all too well the challenges and depredations, be they cultural or ecological. He also traverses the fault lines, from the income, opportunity, and urban-rural divides to immigration and the growing distrust of key liberal values by those inhabiting "zones of exclusion." He also vivifies many historic emblems, including the mythic scaffolding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or how King Philip's War in Puritan New England was a tragic template for the destruction of Native lands in America. Zoellner exposes naiveté, foolishness, and malfeasance with equal clarity, but he is evenhanded and sometimes produces a piece of sardonic humor, haunting beauty, or melancholy that pulsates on the page. He is both a first-rate reporter with years of newspaper and magazine work behind him and a skilled stylist who makes you want to come back for more. Highly recommended. Zoellner will acquaint you with byways, and mores, you never knew existed. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Tom Zoellner is the author and co-author of eight previous nonfiction books, the politics editor of The Los Angeles Review of Books , an associate professor of English at Chapman University and a visiting professor of English at Dartmouth College. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic , Harper's, Men's Health, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal , and many other places. He is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from The Lannan Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.