Roads : Driving America's Great Highways (Hardcover)

by Larry McMurtry (Author) "I ARRIVED IN DULUTH on a wintry Sunday night..." (more)
Key Phrases: Archer City, Kansas City, North Dakota (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
You couldn't find a blunter or more accurate title for Larry McMurtry's third work of nonfiction. Roads is indeed an automotive odyssey, in which the author traverses America on one highway after another. As such, the book has a long and honorable pedigree, stretching back to Tocqueville by way of Kerouac, and many readers will compare it to William Least Heat-Moon's bucolic ramble, Blue Highways. That, however, would be a mistake. The last thing McMurtry has in mind is a leisurely tour of small-town America--he's interested in the interstates themselves, "the great roads, the major migration routes that carry Americans long distances quickly." No wonder the speedometer seldom dips below 65 mph throughout the entire narrative. McMurtry is a man on the move, and even his meditative moments fly by in the linguistic equivalent of fourth gear.

Actually, there may be another reason the author is reluctant to apply the brakes: his distaste for various towns, villages, counties, and entire states. Planning a trip to the Texas hill country? McMurtry notes that "the soil is too stoney to farm or ranch, the hills are just sort of forested speed bumps, and the people, mostly of stern Teutonic stock, are suspicious, tightfisted, unfriendly, and mean." Missouri is "a place to get through as rapidly as possible," Ohio and Georgia "really aren't pleasant," and woe to the traveler who lingers in the one-horse towns of the West, "where it's not even wise to roll down one's windows--if you avoid getting murdered you might still breathe in some deadly desert germ."

This crankiness does have an undeniable comic appeal. Yet Roads turns out to be a sentimental journey after all, in the course of which McMurtry hopes to resurrect some of the élan vital he lost in the wake of his 1991 heart surgery. Driving, like reading itself, just may prompt some remembrance of things past:

As I prepared to drive those same overfamiliar roads again it occurred to me that my effort was obliquely Proustian, a retracing of my past that is analogous to the many rereadings I've done in the last few years, always of books I read before the surgery. In these rereadings and redrivings I'm searching, not for lost time, but for lost feelings, for the elements of my old personality that are still unaccounted for. I'm not anguished about these absentees, just curious and somewhat wistful.

Indeed, anguish is largely absent from McMurtry's account, and he doesn't dwell often on this scenario of loss and recovery. Still, it comes through particularly strongly at the end, when he compares his own, transient experience of place to his father's. These final chapters cast a sadder and more substantial light on the preceding ones--and make this circuitous, sometimes tetchy book a trip worth taking. --James Marcus

From Library Journal
McMurty, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove and Oscar for the screenplay for The Last Picture Show, has now delved into the "on the road" genre. He covers most of the country with the exception of the Northeast (reflecting a dislike of I-95) and limits his roads to primarily interstate highways, usually flying to some point in the United States, renting a car, and driving back via the interstates to his home in Archer City, TX. Along the way, he comments on writers indigenous to the area, his own books and screenplays, his likes and dislikes, and his own life. On the whole, there is nothing exceptional here-the best chapter in the book concerns the dirt roads of the author's youth. Recommended only for libraries with a large demand for the author's fiction and those that wish to provide some supplemental autobiographical material on McMurtry.
--John McCormick, New Hampshire State Lib., Concord
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition. edition (July 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684868849
• ISBN-13: 978-0684868844
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,098,944 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take this book along on your next road trip!, July 1, 2000

By	Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This slim volume should appeal to a variety of folks -- from couch potatoes, to occasional vacationers who pile the kids into the SUV once a summer, and especially to those 'pavement adventurers' among us who travel the interstates often. No matter what part of the country you live in, Larry McMurtry is apt to have driven through it and written at least a few sentences about it. I was fortunate enough to pick up this book just as I was returning from a 10-day drive through seven states, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about stretches of road that I had just covered myself. At the same time that he shares his geographical experiences, McMurtry also teaches you about the literature of that area -- books either ABOUT the place, or BY the authors who live(d) in it. What a nice surprise! This approach makes "Roads" a nice gift for travelers or simply for avid readers as well. If you know McMurtry only for westerns, you'll discover many more dimensions to him in this pseudo-autobiography from behind the wheel. Good, relaxing, summertime reading!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fellow wanderer, September 28, 2000

By	Jane (Detroit, MI USA) - See all my reviews

As someone who has driven through most of this country, I have tried to understand why I love the road and why I get restless to get in the car and drive for hours. It's not the destination; it's the travel.

It was incredible to find this book because for the first time, I have found somebody who gets it, who understands it. While reading this, I relived my own adventures which not only made me happy -- but very anxious to go on another trip. Mr. McMurtry was able to find the words I've tried to find when I try to explain to others why I love long road trips.

It's a wonderful narration of the impressions we all get as we travel through areas, but it also makes you think about what you may not know about your own area, such as its history or storytellers. I do not see Mr. McMurty as lonely, but very much a participant in life that nudges others into thought, introspection, and remembrance. Our worlds are what we make them, and his is as expansive as the plains.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Different can be good, September 22, 2000

By	"doug_llewelyn" (Denton, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Be warned that this is not a traditional travel narrative. Larry McMurtry muses on writers that live(d) in the areas that he passes, things that he loves, or has loved, about those areas, and reminisces about his own life while flying down America's interstates. I found the book to be enjoyable, but intensely personal. If you are not interested in the author, you may want to consider a more traditional "road trip" book. That said, I must reiterate that I enjoyed this book, especially the discussions of area authors. I now have a whole list of books that I want to read. I found this book to be a comfortable break from tradition.