Road Angels: Searching For Home On America's Coast of Dreams [Hardcover]

Kent Nerburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2001

Life is a road, and on every road as in every life, there are angels.

Sometimes big events have small origins. There was no divorce, no loss of job, no dramatic crisis of faith and self-confidence. It was, at heart, the accretion of little things, like a deepening blanket of snow, that finally caused the branch to snap and sent me careening back to the West Coast from my comfortable home in the woods of northern Minnesota.

Let me tell you how it happened.

Author Kent Nerburn was feeling stuck in the middle: middle age, midway in a career, and in the middle of the Midwest. Fearing that his passion and spirit for life were dimming and worried that his family needed to escape the harsher realities of Minnesota life, Nerburn set out from the stark, frozen landscape of a northern winter to drive alone down the coastal roads of Washington, Oregon, and California.

Yes, this road is layered with ghosts. The good padres, the less good padrones, the Indians who have been all but forgotten, the workers and the laborers and the migrants and the serfs; the wealthy and the desperate, the starlets and the Okies, the families coming soon to their cul-de-sac lives.

All have traveled this road in search of their own private El Dorado. And now I too am among them, just one more sojourner searching for waters to slake my unquenchable American thirst.

Ride shotgun with Kent Nerburn as he uncovers the myths and dreams of America's West Coast. Road Angels is a search for home that brings us face-to-face with unexpected places and extraordinary people -- a journey of profound insights about how the land we claim affects every aspect of our lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bestselling author and native Minnesotan Nerburn (Simple Truths) navigates the West Coast from Washington to California. "[N]o divorce, no loss of job, no dramatic crisis of faith and self-confidence" led Nerburn away from his home in beautiful, isolated northern Minnesota, and his wife and his 10-year-old son, only a sense that the West Coast is his old lover: "Until I put her out of my mind... I'll never be at peace with this cold outpost that we now call home." Revisiting his young-adult haunts of 20 years ago, he hunts "street-level experience the ordinary people, the casual encounters, the ad hoc turns and serendipitous decisions." In various encounters a Native American, a student hitchhiker, a log-truck driver Nerburn captures the vocal and narrative styles of people who otherwise seem like caricatures (noble Native, ditzy student, gruff worker). Though he wants to explore "the myth of the West and the road" via these voices, for the book's first two-thirds he ruminates interminably on the misery of the trip. Cogent insights into 1960s counterculture's smalltown legacies ("Their mendicant lifestyle has been reduced to a pauper's huddling inside of half-finished huts") are overwhelmed by facile observations ("cities... feel like places where will and ambition matter more than sensitivity and compassion"). Nerburn's ingenuousness at the West's many changes including one improbable moment when he doesn't understand the ordering box in a fast-food drive-through lane smacks of pretense when one knows that he maintains his own Web site (www.kentnerburn.com). In the last third, he forsakes his midlife crisis for a tough, tight account of a day in wealthy, suburban Mill Valley and politicized Berkeley and Oakland's mean streets, finally achieving the immediacy and palpability he seeks. 6-city West Coast author tour; 15-city NPR tour. (June)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

On a bitterly cold November day while living in a small community in the northern Minnesota woods, Nerburn made a sudden, life-changing decision to return to the fondly remembered California coast of his youth. In what became a search for a sense of home, he left behind his supportive wife and young son and began his solo pilgrimage by air, flying out to Seattle, WA. Bringing the reader along on his trek, Nerburn shares his experiences, encounters, and thoughts as he drives along the coastal roads of Washington, Oregon, and California. As evidenced by this contemplative travel chronicle, Nerburn learned much about himself in his encounters with some of the extraordinary people and places in this country. A sculptor, widely published art critic, and author of several nonfiction books (e.g., Simple Truths: Clear and Gentle Guidance on the Big Issues of Life), Nerburn here reveals himself to be a fine writer as well. Armchair travelers will revel in this book. Highly recommended for all libraries. Cynde Bloom Lahey, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 321 pages
• Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco; 1st edition (June 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060698683
• ISBN-13: 978-0060698683
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,166,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Road Angels is a great ride., July 24, 2001

By 

colleen kelly (Los Angeles, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Road Angels: Searching For Home On America's Coast of Dreams (Hardcover)

I loved ROAD ANGELS. I didn't want to put it down. Being a midwesterner transplanted to Los Angeles twenty years ago, I was curious to see how the author viewed the West Coast. I was surprised, delighted and moved as he made his journey from the Canadian border to San Luis Obispo. The images of the landscapes he passes through and his detailed and thoughtful portraits of the people he encounters compelled me to keep reading. Nerburn's reflections on his trip over the road and his journey through life made me pause and think about my own life; where I had been and where I was going. The conclusion that he draws from his conversations with three very different men in the San Francisco area is beautiful in its spiritual simplicity. As the book comes to an end I was moved to tears by his description of an act of kindness and closure.

This is a story that reveals in sensitive, insightful and often times humourous ways, the lives and longings of people we pass everyday. I thank the author for taking me along for the ride.

Read ROAD ANGELS. It is wonderful.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book, July 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Road Angels: Searching For Home On America's Coast of Dreams (Hardcover)

Very articulate and insightful reading. Authors use of the English language is artfully done. The book can be read on several levels from the mundane tasks of life to a much deeper sense . To me it is more about the dillemas we all face as human spiritual beings and how we try to make sense of that in a very material world. It has given me a new view of my life. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing for reading with some substance as well as enjoyment.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very insightful and beautifully written, August 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Road Angels: Searching For Home On America's Coast of Dreams (Hardcover)

I just heard this author read in Ashland, Oregon. I did not know of him but his intelligence intrigued me so I bought the book. I think anyone who has ever relocated or contemplated a change in life should read this book. It is not only a wonderful read but a very profound examination of home and place. I will definitely recommend it to my most discriminating friends.