Road Fever [Paperback]

Tim Cahill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1992

Tim Cahill reports on the road trip to end all road trips: a journey that took him from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in a record-breaking twenty three and a half days.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you define "adventure travel" as anything that's more fun to read about than to live through, then Tim Cahill's Road Fever is the adventure of a lifetime. Along with professional long-distance driver Garry Sowerby, Cahill drove 15,000 miles from the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego to the northernmost terminus of the Dalton Highway in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, from one end of the world to another, in a record-breaking 23 1/2 days. Just like the authors' camper-shelled GMC Sierra truck, the narrative bounces along at a relentless pace. Along the way Cahill and Sowerby cope with mood swings, engine trouble, Andean cliffs, obstinate bureaucracies, slick highways, armed and uncomprehending soldiery (not to mention the challenges of securing O.P.M., or Other People's Money--the sine qua non of adventure, Cahill observes). Author of such off-the-wall travelogues as Pass the Butterworms and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, Cahill is equipped with the correct amalgam of chutzpah and dementia to survive what can only be called "The Road Trip From Hell." Readers, however, will thoroughly enjoy themselves.

From Library Journal

This is a hip, rather self-indulgent, yet ultimately triumphant account of an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Re cords time for a road trip from the tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Cahill and endurance driver Gary Sowerby spent 23 days piloting a truck while battling customs snafus, mechanical problems, bad roads, civil rebellions, terrorists, bandits, the vagaries of weather, their own anxieties and mood swings, and physical exhaustion, with grit and bluff, sporting lapel pins and consuming donated four-month shelf-life milkshake packages. For all the comic-opera aspects of the text, Cahill is an informed, serious commentator on the history and prospects of the countries through which they pass. Readers familiar with Cahill's alternate lifestyle point of view will know what they are getting into. Fans of his contributions to Outside and Rolling Stone , and of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh ( LJ 10/1/87) and A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg ( LJ 2/15/89) will grab his newest work. For others, expect a treat.
- Libby K. White, Sche nectady Cty. P.L., N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Vintage Departures Edition edition (March 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394758374
• ISBN-13: 978-0394758374
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,730 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:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read It Fast, July 23, 2003

By 

James Carragher (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Road Fever (Paperback)

You probably can't race through it in 23 1/2 minutes, a minute for each day of Cahill and partner Gary Sowerby's Guinness World Record trip from south of Ushuaia, Argentina, (a lovely little city, by personal and Road Fever testimony) to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, but you should speed through the pages as they sped along the roads. The trip was in 1987 and would be impossible today because some of the route through Colombia is under violent guerrilla control. I would have liked much more of the trip and much less of the preparations. The logistics of preparing for long-distance race driving are staggering, but -- alas -- they are also not very interesting and well over a third of the less than 300 pages cover the getting ready. Once on the road some of Cahill's descriptions of the people and terrains through which they drive are terrific, especially the accounts of the Atacama desert in northern Chile and especially scary driving through Central America. I'd have liked more of that, but too much of the writing is of the "by five o'clock we reached x where we stopped for gas and got directions out of town" variety. Kind of like reading your MapQuest driving directions; they fill space, (usually) get you there, but are more functional than interesting. In the end, while I enjoyed Road Fever I thought it would be more fun than it was. Final note: absence of a map or maps is inexplicable.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Try This at Home, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Road Fever (Paperback)

Tim Cahill is one of my favorite writers--he manages to be funny and touching at just the right moments. This book does both, although the emphasis is decidedly on "funny." I'm delighted to have experienced his trip vicariously, and would recommend this (or any of his other books) to anyone with a sense of humor and an interest in travel.

I would take issue with a comment by Rosseroo (below), however: I don't think enjoyment of these books is at all gender-specific; I'm a woman who is only sorry that she's read all of Cahill's books (I wish there were more!). And I haven't shared them with anyone, male or female, who didn't find them hilarious.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars frenetically-paced, often amusing travelogue, July 20, 2000

By 

J. K. Kelley "literary mercenary" (Eastern WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Road Fever (Paperback)

Cahill, a fellow who does interesting things and writes about them for a living, went with Garry Sowerby of Canada on an endurance driving trip from Ushuaia in southern Argentina to Deadhorse, Alaska; this is the story.

Where Cahill succeeds most here is in descriptive talent. From his conflicts with Sowerby to the smells of the inside of the vehicle to the terrain around him to the encounters with customs officials of a dozen nations, he never fails to paint a credible and interesting picture. Tim has always been good about telling the story even if it makes him look foolish, and this sense of literary integrity is strong here.

The only thing I felt a little shorted by was the virtual lack of any description of any activity between the US/Mexican border and Fairbanks. I can imagine them blazing across the US and Canada up to the Alcan in a day with no trouble, and maybe not much happened, but the real Alcan gets more interesting as you get into the Yukon and beyond; it seems it was glossed over. If I had a half-star markdown I might use it, but it wouldn't be fair to Cahill to mark him down a whole star on what is otherwise a great book--maybe not much really happened, which would explain why not much is said.

Recommended for adventure travel lovers, particularly those focused on South America.