5:29:21 Blue Highways: A Journey into America, a book review

Despite being a best-seller and the intriguing appeal of exploring an "Other America" tucked away by two-lane blacktops that gave title to Blue Highways: A Journey into America, it took me four decades to pick up William Least Heat-Moon's travelogue. I finally did and it’s unalloyed reading pleasure.

book cover

Heat-Moon took his title from those little travelled highways that were blue lines in his old Rand McNally Road Atlas. Unlike the red multi-lane and Interstates favored by travellers with no time to waste, Heat-Moon had plenty of time for his van to circuit the continental U.S over those two-lane highways, sometimes unpaved.

Why did he make this trip? Several reasons. He was at loose ends, having recently separated from his wife; he lost his job teaching English at a college which was suffering declining enrollment; and he needed the recovery time fresh horizons might bring.

One reason Blue Highways works well as a travelogue is the author is a likable narrator. Plus as an Osage with some English-Irish bloodlines, he must have been a non-threatening interviewer. He gets to know all types: the maple syrup harvester in New Hampshire, the cynical young Black men in Selma, Alabama; the inspired young Hopi studying pre-med in Utah.

And like a true writer, Heat-Moon avoids quick conclusions and tries to get at the story of whomever he meets. Moments after he picks up hitchhiking Arthur O. Bakke, he wonders if he made a mistake. The first question Bakke asks is, Do you want a free Bible course? Heat-Moon feels trapped. He considers turning around and dropping off Bakke. But no, Heat-Moon's writer instinct leads him to wonder, How did this aging, gray-bearded man end up penniless, all his worldly belongings in an aluminum suitcase, thumbing a ride in the middle of nowhere?

In a moving recollection, Heat-Moon describes how Bakke’s life was spared after an automobile accident, how Bakke vowed to devote his life to Jesus Christ and offer the free Seventh-Day Adventist Bible study courses, which he lugs everywhere. Heat-Moon decides Bakke has given his life purpose by paring everything back to the minimum. Thus, Bakke’s dedication is not unlike any religious devotee, whether a Zen monk in a Kyoto temple or a Christian pilgrim standing alongside a blue highway in Idaho.

Blue Highways finds many such unforgettable characters across America. Add in an amazing command of local history and the travelogue ends too soon, full circle, in Columbia, Missouri.

Blue Highways: a Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon, Little, Brown and Company, New York, 1982, ISBN: 978-0-316-21854-2.

Image credit: littlebrown.com


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