Customer Reviews

The Last Riders on Route 66

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the ultimate American Spring Break story. Buck and Pete, a couple of innocent boys, get educated about life while on a hitch hiking trip down old Route 66 in 1967. What a great idea and story. I love Rt 66 and anything about it. I get all romantic when I think about it. And romance? Well, the author delivers that! This is one of the sexiest books I've ever read. Chet Nichols definetely is the best writer of sensual scenes I've read lately (can you print that?). Very steamy. I like that. Plus, the story really takes you back to the 60's and gives you a taste of what that time was all about. I was a baby in Switzerland when all the events were happening in this book, but the book made me wish I was there.It made me miss America. I really enjoyed all the characters.....Eddie Lee, Avery, Mary Jane, Amy (reminds me of myself), Father O'Brien....plus there were alot of great female characters in the story. The author knows how to write about women. I like that.Besides being real sexy, this book is also very funny and it's a fast read. I was on vacation in Southern France and I read it in two days on the beach. My boy friend also read it and really enjoyed it. It turned both of us on! I think it's the best novel written about Route 66...and one of the other reviews said someting about this book being made into a movie. That is a great idea. Tell the author, Chet Nichols, that I am going to share this book with all my friends in Paris and Rome.Love to all!

Spring Break, 1966. Florida - been there, done that. Road Trip - where? Route 66. Let's go. Buck and Pete step onto 66 in Oklahoma, and step off in a California many of us remember and long for. Music, women and a culture unsure of where the Viet Nam War would lead us, provide the guys with a Spring Break unlike anything they had previously experienced. Chet Nichols brings to life a story dedicated to leaving the path our parents would have wished on us, to explore a world the majority only dreamed of. The discovery of an idyllic life in Flagstaff, Arizona (punctuated by a redneck run-in) leads the guys to understand there is something beyond the confines of Oklahoma. (A side note - although a novel, I can assure you Josh and Maggie are alive and well, and their Granddaughters are every bit as wild as their mothers - Flagstaff lives on!). The beach, and the grandeur of the Pacific, leads to the world of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll - a time many of us remember with fondness, and Chet brings it all back in vividly written scenes that make an "old guy" long for a return to those times. The Last Riders on Route 66 is the Route 66 novel we've waited for. Guidebooks, histories, maps and, even a murder mystery have explored the Mother Road, but Chet Nichols takes us on a Road Trip that will stir the emotions of those who lived through the excitement of the 60's only to land in the boredom of the 90's and the new millineum. Well, researched (with only a couple of minor errors about the road), and written in a style that virtually demands you keep reading, The Last Riders of Route 66 is a book for every Roadie who lived through the sixties. Were Buck and Pete truly the last riders of Route 66? The answer is, sadly, yes, they may have been. The rest of us can only search the road and bring with us our memories of those Road Trips from years gone by - but through the pages of Chet Nichols novel we are allowed to share in one of the great Road Trips of all time.

Chet Nichols has some good ideas here -- it's hard to resist a story of two college chums hitchhiking across Route 66 during the beginning of the peace movement and "free love" era (apparently a lot of free love, at that) during the 1960s. The background of growing upheaval and social change on America's most famous road provides for a lot of literary opportunities.

The book works fairly well in getting a sense of traveling on that road -- an valuable service, as many of the attractions that made Route 66 so fun and adventuresome disappeared after the interstates.

Trouble is, Nichols' story of the two hitchhikers is marred by a lack of character development. I wanted to know more about what made the characters tick, their backgrounds, what motivated them and their actions, but was left wanting.

Secondly, the book is poorly edited, with inappropriate capitalizations, misspellings and misplaced punctuation that distract the reader. Was someone asleep at the publishing house while proofing the manuscript? A few errors in several hundred pages I will forgive, but not dozens and dozens of them.

Maybe someday a great novel will be written about Route 66 and all its contradictions, landscapes, people and pop culture contributions. This one isn't it.

This book would be un unreal screenplay! Action, Drama, Humor...with a truly unique & original voice. Bravo!

I've known Chet Nichols for 30 years, and I still loved this book.

Anyone who lived through and loved the 60's and early 70's, had hair below their collars, ever inhaled, or who's astrology centered on being a triple texaco with hormones rising, will see themselves between these pages.

Chet has done a wonderful job of painting word pictures,that summon up those early years of social revolution, learning to let go of archaic values and replace them with new and fresh ideas and finding out, that you actually have choices. The texture of the music and sensuality of the players, are palpable,real and very engaging.

Try it, you'll like it!

... I picked up a copy of Chet Nichols' "Last Riders on Route 66" and laughed myself silly reliving my fortunately-misspent youth through the agency of Buck'n'Pete, Chicago-Oklahoman brothers in the Tribe-of-Thumbs, as they wend their spring-break way to California and back on America's Highway under the gathering stormclouds that only later would be understood simply as "the sixties". Charged by lightning bolts of sexual awakening and Huxleian self-discovery under the pall of an ever-increasing Vietnam involvement and the gloaming of the non-elective "selective service", this book honestly and effectively showcases the emotional conundrae of the Road-and-Thumb clan as they ritually seek to witch the brewing storm down upon themselves. Each chapter is a group wine-and-spaghetti event, to be shared and enjoyed with others and savored for its now-exotic smells, flavors, textures, and braided conversations. For my part, I wolfed those chapters down, only stopping for breath when the next page was to be the book's back cover. Rest assured, I'll be back for seconds.

A wonderful, wonderful job, Chet -- congratulations... And thanx...

The Last Riders On Route 66, by Chet Nichols, is one of the very few books which accurately lives the many states of mind of the 1960s. His writing depicts those times unselfconsciously; allowing the characters to tell their quietly exciting tales with transparent innocence. It it appropriately sexy, realistically spiritual, reflective, spontaneously violent, and effortlessly comedic. Long after reading it, one can continue to swill this story. It has a good after taste. Last Riders has many dimensions, accessible to most age groups and walks of life. This may be an important book for young men to read. It's delightful for us females to get all stirred up into. We'll give it to our lovers as a hint, hint, hint. The Last Riders On Route 66 makes you miss places you've never been to. It's the long version of a well written song. Review by: Estrella Berosini: writer, composer, inventor, and subject of songs including Joni Mitchell's "Estrella, circus girl" in Ladies Of The Canyon, Warner Bros.

I liked to read this book, I really did. When I put it down I often thought about his experiences. When I picked it up I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I've been to most of these towns, either as a youth in the sixties, or later as a performer and the sense of these places came alive in the book. It is not an revolutionary, earth shattering novel, yet it was compelling and fun. I do recommend it.

Take a ride on Rte 66. Two students set out to hitch hike to California during school break. The people they meet and the adventures they have during their trip, describe the attitudes and changes about to happen during the 60s. America was about to enter into a time when the "flower children" took center stage, the new music caused controversy, and the nation would be shaken by what was taking place.The author relates his experiences during these changing times, capturing the many different attitudes and faces of those met on the journey.Route 66 was one of the major routes to California during that time, especially during the winter months, and those of us who travelled it, met many of the folks described in this novel. Take a trip with the author and enjoy his narrative of those times. Worth a look into.

This is a real page-turner. I really wish I'd had the time to just sit down and read it cover to cover. But alas, it took several sittings. I could hardly wait to get back to it. It is an intrguing mix of humor, fun and excitement that has you riding right along with the last riders. This is a book with great and accurate texture. Having traveled Route 66 in the 60s, I can relate to Buck's and Pete's odyssey very easily. Whether you're interested in Route 66, the 60's, boys or girls, there is plenty here for you. You'll love it.