Customer Reviews

Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily ... kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

You can sometimes tell a lot more about a book from its subtitle than its title. This is surely the case with _Cross Country: Fifteen Years and Ninety Thousand Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels, a Moving Van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother-in-Law, Two Kids, and Enough Coffee to Kill an Elephant_ (Bloomsbury) by Robert Sullivan. You can view the sample of the topics in the book on display in the subtitle, but more important, you get an idea that Sullivan is a writer who cannot resist cramming more in. This was true in his last book, _Rats_, an examination of a rat colony in New York City, and is even more true in this big and desultory rumination on the great American road trip. Sullivan reports that when in the car, "I am - like a tour director nobody paid for, like a tour guide nobody can stop, like a human roadside plaque - going on and on... I wish I could control myself; my explications worry me to some extent." His family, he reflects, is a captive audience, but he invites the reader to remember that the book can be put down for a few minutes or possibly forever. Many will find this expansive book disorderly and self-indulgent, but I found it hard to put down, and was sorry when the long trip was all done. Sullivan is an engaging, informative, and funny writer, and in a book that is about wandering, he never really wanders off subject, but he does pull in facts and history about an astonishing range of topics, from roadside sculptures to the Cannonball Run.

Sullivan has driven across the country more than two dozen times, since he has contacts on both coasts. The book is ostensibly a memoir of a trip from Oregon to New York, just a family driving, mostly on interstates, and initially following the return route of Lewis and Clark. His "Hey, who wants to read from the Lewis and Clark journals this time?" might have been greeted with moans, but the kids and wife seem to be good sports about it all. (And the son does the reading.) He has historically appropriate fiddle music ready on CDs. Though Lewis and Clark form the major digressions in this memoir, Sullivan is fascinated by later cross country travel. We learn, for instance, that cross-country drivers used to stay in campgrounds, and then bungalows, and then into something new called motor courts, auto hotels, or motor hotels. These were called "autels" before "motels" became the accepted term. Though hotels tried to be a "home away from home", they gained a bad reputation; in 1940, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, said motels were "dens of vice and corruption." Who knew that there was a history of lids for coffee cups? Most to-go coffee lids are "drink-through" lids, and the first one, the "Stubblefield Lid" was patented in 1935. Stubblefield is not to be confused with "the guitar pick", which leaves a remnant of plastic once the user rips a wedge-shaped piece from the edge, or the "peel and lock" lid, or the pinch lid, or the 8FTL model, or the pucker lid, or the Solo Traveler which wound up as an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art. "I invariably look to the lid, as a predictor," Sullivan writes. "I study it as I open it, if only briefly, with anticipation of rejuvenation, in the same way that I might look at a church door."

Sullivan is ecstatic about using the interstates. "When I am on the road, I see the America that is a continual expedition, the never-ending race to the last frontier, rural or suburban or exurban. In other words, America _is_ the road." He finishes with a coda of amazements, amazement about trips in canoes and on foot, amazement over the changing face of America, amazement that we can ride suspended over a mile-high river. He is as enthusiastic about the history of the gas pump as he is about the origins of fast food or the efforts of Lewis and Clark reenactors. He is a terrific guide, and the book is a great trip.

Cross Country is about straight driving on America's interstates. The book, however, is more like a Sunday afternoon ramble over country lanes with many detours and unplanned stops.

Robert Sullivan is a cross-country veteran, having made numerous trips from coast to coast in pursuit of jobs, weddings and vacations. The central thread of this book is his latest cross country trip back from a west-coast family wedding to home in New York City. Along the way, Sullivan gets sidetracked many times, delving into past trips, the "cross country trip from hell," the creation of the interstate system, rest stops, towel dispensers in rest stops, rest stop coffee, rest stop food, road side art and most enduringly, Lewis and Clark related stops in the North and Upper Western parts of his journey (the author has an abiding fascination with the first US cross-country explorers).

At its best, Cross Country is a fascinating collection of trivia and stories behind the interstate system. At its worst, it's like watching somebody else's home movies. Fortunately, the home movie aspect is less than the fascinating. I enjoyed the in-depth telling of the creation of the interstate road network, and Sullivan has a collection of interesting factoids about America's roads, crash and safety statistics and the personalities behind the creation of America's national road system. He also highlights Lewis and Clark's journey whenever the road crosses their trail. He delves into the story of incredibly mundane aspects of road travel, like the development and variety of coffee lids and the pros and cons of competing bathroom towel dispenser designs. (It really is more interesting than it sounds - he writes these well.)

Interspersed with these vignettes is the family trip. His family is a nice enjoyable lot; these parts of the book range from witty and amusing to tedious. Sullivan is no Bill Bryson when it comes to travel writing, but he has produced an enjoyable book nonetheless.

This guy is an excellent writer. He could write about rats and it would be interesting. Wait, he DID write about rats and it was interesting. "Cross Country" is about Sullivan, like most of his books, but he somehow dodges the navel-gazing traps of so many so-called memoirists out there.

I loved this book. Took me back to long car trips to see the grandparents in Illinois, fighting with my stupid sister, having to pee every half hour, eating junk we never got at home... The writing is just fine, regardless of what the previous reviewer says. Read it!

If the author of this book left out the words LEWIS AND CLARK tbis book would have been 200 pages shorter. I nearly put this book down in the beginning because of this monotony but glad I didn't because it became an enjoyable read with lots of interesting facts and trivia about roads, motels, people and early days of travel.

When I began the book, I didn't like it. I didn't care about Lewis and Clark and their expedition. Then I thought, give it a chance. I believe everyone and everything deserves a second chance. Boy, am I glad that I did! I absolutely loved it! I hated that it ended. I did learn a thing or two about our interstate system, and this spectacular country of ours. I wish it never ended. I may read it again some day.

I heard the author on NPR and thought the book sounded promising. I expected to discover a wonderful family experience of four people locked for days in a car; I really wanted to know these people. I expected an enjoyable trip. Instead, Mr. Sullivan gave me a synopsis of every book he'd read about Lewis and Clark, and more trivia than I wanted to know. This author even turned a brother/sister backseat conversation about Barbie into a mindboggling trivia fact sheet. Mr. Sullivan, I wanted to know you and your family; instead, I'm afraid I learned only about you. Frankly, on a road trip, you're a bore.

Although this book may seem a bit disjointed and rambling at first, hold on and enjoy the ride! The disgressions will teach you much-- from the monumental Lewis and Clark expedition and the development of the interstate system to the evolution of Holiday Inns and paper towel dispensers. I also enjoyed Sullivan's non-snarky and down-to-earth observations about traveling with his patient wife and kids. He has a wide-eyed wonder about it all that keeps the reader involved and awake--even without the benefit of coffee.

I wanted to like this book---I really did. In fact, I wanted to like it so much that I kept plodding all the way to the end despite the fact that I found it boring most of the time. I love books about cross-country travel, but this one had so much of what I considered just "padding" to fill pages. There were a few gems in the book, but not enough for me to recommend it to someone. It's as if he felt a compulsion to record all of his thoughts regardless of how inane they were or how meaningless they would be to the reader. The book represents a great concept poorly executed.

This book has a most eye-catching cover, but the writing does not live up to the promises made on the book flaps. Robert Sullivan has driven across the country dozens of times and writes of his experiences

The best part of the book is the crude drawings and accompanying notations. This serves to make up for the uninspired writing that relates much about Lewis and Clark and service station coffee while not telling us the kind of interesting stories that the book flaps promised us. The writing is just so much hot air and endless details of his travels.

Bottom line: Wait and see if this book makes your public library and if it does, give it a look.