The distance to the moon : a road trip into the American dream / James Morgan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Morgan, James, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Description and travel.

United States.

Morgan, James, 1944---Travel--United States.

Morgan, James.

Morgan, James, 1944-.

Travel.

Automobile travel--United States.

Automobile travel.

Physical Description:

285 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Riverhead Books, 1999.

Summary:

John Updike once wrote that every seventeen years the average American male drives the distance to the moon. But the average American male doesn't do it in a sleek Boxster convertible on loan from Porsche. Fulfilling a lifelong fantasy, James Morgan took the Boxster--a model so new it had yet to be driven on American highways--and hit the road, driving to the end of each day to see where it would lead him.

The Distance to the Moon is about America's love affair with the car and the open road--what James Morgan calls "the epic entanglement that's defined this century and reshaped the face of America." Morgan takes us from Florida to Oregon, stopping at such sites as Carhenge in Nebraska (think Stonehenge, made of wrecked cars) and interviewing everyone from old car-ad men to automobile collectors and designers, psychologists, historians, road builders, city planners, and barflies in an attempt to discover why we're so obsessed with our automobiles--and what that obsession has cost us. For much of his journey, he follows the path that Lewis and Clark took on their famous westward trek, and draws parallels between his experience and theirs.

Morgan found that the Boxster acted as a lightning rod for people's car stories. Such tales, he came to realize, serve as a common mythology, and tell of our collective coming of age, our youthful aspirations, our successes and failures, our loves and losses. During his travels, Morgan discerned a restlessness and a yearning that define what it is to be American, and a feeling that the simplicity of life on the road can give us the clearest idea of who we are.

The Distance to the Moon is the story of a man whose dream came true--and how it changed him. It is for anyone who has ever shared Morgan's fantasy of jumping in a fast car and hitting the open road, never to return. James Morgan has been praised as a writer and craftsman who understands the American psyche. With him in the driver's seat, we enjoy every second of the ride.

Contents:

Prologue Love Story 1

1. Lewis & Clark & Me 16

2. Fatal Attractions 47

3. Running with the Elk 65

4. Blue Highways 87

5. The Man with the Car 102

6. Cross the River at Memphis 118

7. Party in the Road 138

8. Strange Freight 161

9. Green River Blues 186

10. Physics of the Heart 208

11. Westward Ho 227

12. A Streetcar Named Desire 250

Epilogue The Sculpture Garden 273.

ISBN:

157322135X

OCLC:

40501327