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Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America
In 1782 an immigrant with the high-toned name J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur--"Heartbreak" in English--wrote a pioneering account of one European's transformation into an American. Some two hundred years later Jonathan Raban, arrived in Crèvecoeur's wake to see how America has paid off for succeeding generations of newcomers. The result is a book that is at once a travelogue, a social history, and a love letter to the United States.
In the course of Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Raban passes for homeless in New York and tries to pass for a good ol' boy in Alabama (which entails "renting" an elderly black lab). He sees the Protestant work ethic perfected by Korean immigrants in Seattle--one of whom celebrates her new home as "So big! So green! So wide-wide-wide!"--and repudiated by the lowlife of Key West. And on every page of this peerlessly observant work, Raban makes us experience America with wonder, humor, and an unblinking eye for its contradictions.
In the course of Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Raban passes for homeless in New York and tries to pass for a good ol' boy in Alabama (which entails "renting" an elderly black lab). He sees the Protestant work ethic perfected by Korean immigrants in Seattle--one of whom celebrates her new home as "So big! So green! So wide-wide-wide!"--and repudiated by the lowlife of Key West. And on every page of this peerlessly observant work, Raban makes us experience America with wonder, humor, and an unblinking eye for its contradictions.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Jonathan Raban
37 books179 followersBritish travel writer, critic and novelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 27, 2008
The author manages to put a spin on everything about America, good or bad, and make the mundane appear in such a different light that it is as thought-provoking as it is humorous. I am reading this for my literature class, and while I enjoy the other books that I've read/am reading, this is definitely my favorite text. A highly entertaining and insightful read. Recommended.
September 5, 2019
Having travelled down the length of the Mississippi in a small boat and come to love the country, Raban wanted to get the full experience of what it used to be like to be an immigrant to this vast country. His partner drops him off at the docks in Liverpool and he climbs aboard a container ship called the Atlantic Conveyor, that is ready to depart for New York. A tropical storm, called Helene, delays the voyage and makes for a rough crossing. It does give him time to think about those who were making this voyage with no intention of returning back to the UK. They pause briefly in Halifax to unload some cargo before heading onto New York.
He has secured the use of an apartment, on East 18th Street, between Union Square and Gramercy Park in New York. The concrete cell as he calls it, is half the size of the room he had aboard ship. Naturally, he checks out her bookshelves, before heading out onto the streets to walk where other immigrants first made the tentative steps in making this country their home. The grey cliffs of Manhattan are visible from the apartment and there is a constant low-level rumble of traffic the ebbs and flows throughout the day but never ceases. As he moves around the city, he begins to see that life there can be seen through the prism of the department store, Macy’s in particular. It offered a way of life for some people and a glimpse of something unobtainable for the rest. Taking time to sit on a fire hydrant and observer life as it rushed around him, he began to see that the New York was stratified into two layers; the Street People who are those who are just keeping their heads above water, and the Air people who were whisked to places by lifts, taking them far away from the street.
Having had his fill of this city it was time to hit the road. Taking the I78 and then joining the much larger I80 he headed south, flying past the drivers pootling along at 50. Arriving in Guntersville, Alabama he finds it very much different from New York. Staying in a rented cabin he sets about meeting the residents and has to borrow a dog for personal security by the lake. Realising that this community has very conservative views he keeps a lot of his opinions to himself, knowing that some will take offence to them. It was time to move on again.
This time he was travelling by plane across the country. Not his favourite form of transport, especially when the plane was stuck on the tarmac and not going anywhere any time soon. The contrast with his nerves and a guy nearby who has a basket of popcorn and a book and pays no attention to the announcements. It gives him time to consider the differences between the American’s ease in which they take a plane and the event that flying in Europe is at that time. His destination is to the city where the plane was made, Seattle. It was here that he began to realise that he wanted a city he could mould to his shape, rather than having to fit in with what others did. First, though, he had to find somewhere to live, provided his car he was driving could make it. It was a place that felt American, and yet didn’t fit the other characterises that he came to know for other travels around this country.
It wouldn’t be a Raban book without some sort of boat journey and he heads to the diagonally opposite side of the country on the southern tip of Florida. While he is there he contemplates some of the, shall we say, less legal ways of making money in the region. Talking to the law enforcement people there about it he realises that it is fraught with danger and he would be in the high risk of something nasty happening to him. Chartering the Sea Mist he settles into a gentle cruise off the coast and is even brave enough to put of shorts and reveal his lily-white legs to the sun and probably consternation of the locals…
He writes about America so well, treating the flaws of the people with a warm shrug and embracing the qualities of the places he visits. I am glad too, that I read them in the order of publication, you sense as you travel with his through all his books the warmth that he has, as he meets people and places and experiences the richness of humanity in all its facets. You also sense in this book, his desire to settle somewhere that suits him and it turns out that Seattle was the place that he moved too and where he still lives now. I think that this is my favourite book of his so far of the five that I have read. Highly recommended.
He has secured the use of an apartment, on East 18th Street, between Union Square and Gramercy Park in New York. The concrete cell as he calls it, is half the size of the room he had aboard ship. Naturally, he checks out her bookshelves, before heading out onto the streets to walk where other immigrants first made the tentative steps in making this country their home. The grey cliffs of Manhattan are visible from the apartment and there is a constant low-level rumble of traffic the ebbs and flows throughout the day but never ceases. As he moves around the city, he begins to see that life there can be seen through the prism of the department store, Macy’s in particular. It offered a way of life for some people and a glimpse of something unobtainable for the rest. Taking time to sit on a fire hydrant and observer life as it rushed around him, he began to see that the New York was stratified into two layers; the Street People who are those who are just keeping their heads above water, and the Air people who were whisked to places by lifts, taking them far away from the street.
Having had his fill of this city it was time to hit the road. Taking the I78 and then joining the much larger I80 he headed south, flying past the drivers pootling along at 50. Arriving in Guntersville, Alabama he finds it very much different from New York. Staying in a rented cabin he sets about meeting the residents and has to borrow a dog for personal security by the lake. Realising that this community has very conservative views he keeps a lot of his opinions to himself, knowing that some will take offence to them. It was time to move on again.
This time he was travelling by plane across the country. Not his favourite form of transport, especially when the plane was stuck on the tarmac and not going anywhere any time soon. The contrast with his nerves and a guy nearby who has a basket of popcorn and a book and pays no attention to the announcements. It gives him time to consider the differences between the American’s ease in which they take a plane and the event that flying in Europe is at that time. His destination is to the city where the plane was made, Seattle. It was here that he began to realise that he wanted a city he could mould to his shape, rather than having to fit in with what others did. First, though, he had to find somewhere to live, provided his car he was driving could make it. It was a place that felt American, and yet didn’t fit the other characterises that he came to know for other travels around this country.
It wouldn’t be a Raban book without some sort of boat journey and he heads to the diagonally opposite side of the country on the southern tip of Florida. While he is there he contemplates some of the, shall we say, less legal ways of making money in the region. Talking to the law enforcement people there about it he realises that it is fraught with danger and he would be in the high risk of something nasty happening to him. Chartering the Sea Mist he settles into a gentle cruise off the coast and is even brave enough to put of shorts and reveal his lily-white legs to the sun and probably consternation of the locals…
He writes about America so well, treating the flaws of the people with a warm shrug and embracing the qualities of the places he visits. I am glad too, that I read them in the order of publication, you sense as you travel with his through all his books the warmth that he has, as he meets people and places and experiences the richness of humanity in all its facets. You also sense in this book, his desire to settle somewhere that suits him and it turns out that Seattle was the place that he moved too and where he still lives now. I think that this is my favourite book of his so far of the five that I have read. Highly recommended.
September 23, 2018
The July issue of Harper's magazine has an article DEATH OF A GREAT AMERICAN CITY, NEW YORK AND THE URBAN CRISIS OF AFFLUENCE. It was disquieting in that the rich have taken over New York City making it very difficult for even the middle class to live there. What was striking is that the same thing is happening in the San Francisco Bay Area and probably other cities across the nation and possibly the world since it is often the global rich who own apartments in NYC that they spend very few days in. Anyway it reminded me of a book I read in 1994 by Jonathan Raban. I pulled HUNTING MISTER HEARTBREAK from my shelf. I had always remembered his term "air people" for the New Yorkers who lived in high rises protected by doormen and only came down to get into private air-conditioned vehicles that would take them to another high rise where they worked or were meeting other wealthy friends. I don't know if Raban coined the term "air people" but it certainly describes what is currently happening in cities around the world. These rich people are so much "air" that they hardly exist and yet they own all the real estate.
Donald Trump always struck me as an air person, a person of privilege in a penthouse. Raban says: "Perhaps it didn't matter what storey you were on, after all. The higher up you were, the more free you were to live in a world of your imaginative making. By the 30th floor, you could probably tear loose from reality altogether."
He also discusses the Bess Meyerson trial that went on in 1989 for abusing her public office. The case was eventually thrown out but the public humiliation was there. Raban writes: "We'd been treated to a fine spectacle, we'd watched an Air Person tumbling head over heels from a high window, and seen someone from the street grotesquely elevated to the Manhattan heights." Is this the line that prompted the beginning scene in Mad Men of Don Draper or someone similar tumbling out of a skyscraper?
What the Air People are trying to avoid: "the current term for these misfortunates was "street people", an expression that had taken over from bag ladies, winos and bums." It is what we now call the homeless. Raban says during the Depression in the 30's these people were called "Buddy" as in "Buddy can you spare a dime? " But by the 1980's they were the outcasts. Raban decides to sit on a fire hydrant and watch the crowds. "It was interesting to feel oneself being willed into nonexistence by total strangers. I'd never felt the force of such frank contempt---and all because I was sitting on a fire hydrant...every one of these guys wanted me wiped out..after only a minute or 2 of this, I began to warm with reciprocal feeling; had I stayed on my hydrant for an hour, I'd have been aching to get my fist round a tire iron or the butt of a .38 just to let a zombie know that I was human too." Explains a lot about guns in America.
"The real middle class in NYC now consisted of that uniformed army whose job it was to save the rich from the unwelcome attentions of the poor." Only problem is in NYC and SF those waiters, repair people, drivers, doormen and maids can't afford to live nearby and aren't as readily available so technology is taking over.
This is a great book. Raban goes on to spend time in Alabama, Seattle and the Florida Keys. There is insight to be had in all chapters. Some of the things I think only started happening recently actually were very much a part of 1989-90. For anyone interested in USA social history and trying to understand where we are now, you will find Raban's picture of the late 80's intriguing.
Donald Trump always struck me as an air person, a person of privilege in a penthouse. Raban says: "Perhaps it didn't matter what storey you were on, after all. The higher up you were, the more free you were to live in a world of your imaginative making. By the 30th floor, you could probably tear loose from reality altogether."
He also discusses the Bess Meyerson trial that went on in 1989 for abusing her public office. The case was eventually thrown out but the public humiliation was there. Raban writes: "We'd been treated to a fine spectacle, we'd watched an Air Person tumbling head over heels from a high window, and seen someone from the street grotesquely elevated to the Manhattan heights." Is this the line that prompted the beginning scene in Mad Men of Don Draper or someone similar tumbling out of a skyscraper?
What the Air People are trying to avoid: "the current term for these misfortunates was "street people", an expression that had taken over from bag ladies, winos and bums." It is what we now call the homeless. Raban says during the Depression in the 30's these people were called "Buddy" as in "Buddy can you spare a dime? " But by the 1980's they were the outcasts. Raban decides to sit on a fire hydrant and watch the crowds. "It was interesting to feel oneself being willed into nonexistence by total strangers. I'd never felt the force of such frank contempt---and all because I was sitting on a fire hydrant...every one of these guys wanted me wiped out..after only a minute or 2 of this, I began to warm with reciprocal feeling; had I stayed on my hydrant for an hour, I'd have been aching to get my fist round a tire iron or the butt of a .38 just to let a zombie know that I was human too." Explains a lot about guns in America.
"The real middle class in NYC now consisted of that uniformed army whose job it was to save the rich from the unwelcome attentions of the poor." Only problem is in NYC and SF those waiters, repair people, drivers, doormen and maids can't afford to live nearby and aren't as readily available so technology is taking over.
This is a great book. Raban goes on to spend time in Alabama, Seattle and the Florida Keys. There is insight to be had in all chapters. Some of the things I think only started happening recently actually were very much a part of 1989-90. For anyone interested in USA social history and trying to understand where we are now, you will find Raban's picture of the late 80's intriguing.
September 16, 2021
As always, Raban's prose is compulsively readable, but this story lacks the clarity of purpose that Old Glory: A Voyage Down the Mississippi had. Why, exactly, does he choose Seattle as his next destination after Alabama, and why the Florida Keys after Seattle? He gathers no immigrant stories in the Keys except for people who have moved there from other parts of the States. One suspects he really wanted to indulge his love of sailing there, and thought that the stories of people and drug smuggling from the Keys would fit within the broader narrative of the immigrant experience. But they don't really fit.
However, it can be argued the book is less about gathering stories of the immigrant experience and more about examining the idea that America offers migrants the opportunity to create themselves anew. By living for short periods in each of the places he travels to, Raban tries that idea on and discovers that it's true, for him at least.
However, it can be argued the book is less about gathering stories of the immigrant experience and more about examining the idea that America offers migrants the opportunity to create themselves anew. By living for short periods in each of the places he travels to, Raban tries that idea on and discovers that it's true, for him at least.
December 16, 2011
A brilliant “travel” book, written in the razor-sharp, accurate, wry prose of an adventurer and scholar. Raban lives in New York, takes in Macy’s, ponders the peculiar American hold on airplane travel, stays in a small Alabama town, falls in love with Seattle and briefly becomes a boat bum in the Florida Keys. Throughout, he keeps up a witty, learned, exhaustively researched outsider’s eye on America’s inconsistencies, foibles, and grandeur. He manages to be informative of social history even as he gazes on American phenomena with the same wide-eyed wonder as his readers. Raban doesn’t travel as much as live the places he reaches, and the book is richer for it.
January 30, 2022
All of Raban’s books help me understand the country where I was born better. It’s especially interesting to read his intimate conversations with Americans from every walk of life and realize that the current state of our country is part of one long trajectory. As in 1989, so in 2022, but some parts are magnified and more mainstream now. Is that a long game? Or just an inevitable result of a nation which underspends on education in favor of its military? Maybe both.
I think Raban is a must-read author for anyone who loves travel narrative. Getting to the heart of America - that’s just a bonus.
I think Raban is a must-read author for anyone who loves travel narrative. Getting to the heart of America - that’s just a bonus.
May 30, 2019
(This is the second half of the 1980's.)
p.66-7
There were the Street People and there were the Air People. Air People levitated like fakirs. Large portions of their day were spent waiting for, and traveling in, the elevators that were as fundamental to the middle-class culture of New York as gondolas had been to Venice in the Renaissance. It was the big distinction--to be able to press a button and take wing to your apartment. It didn't matter that you lived on the sixth, the sixteenth or sixtieth floor; access to the elevator was proof that your life had the buoyancy that was needed to stay afloat in a city where the ground was seen as the realm of failure and menace.
In block like Alice's, where doormen kept up a twenty-four-hour guard against the Street People, the elevator was like the village green. The moment that people were safely inside the cage, they started talking to strangers with cozy expansiveness.
...
Everyone I knew lived like this. Their New York consisted of a series of high-altitude interiors, each one guarded, triple-locked, electronically surveilled. They kept in touch by flying from one interior to the next, like sociable gulls swooping from cliff to cliff. For them, the old New York of streets, squares, neighborhoods, was rapidly turning into a vague and distant memory. It was the place where TV thrillers were filmed. It was where the Street People lived.
...
Diane, my friend of twenty years, had turned into an Air Person...
Her apartment was a rectangle of sunlight, adrift in the thin air of High Manhattan.
"It's sort of nowhere, really. That's what I like about New York--it's nowhere. Nowhere, with a view."
So it was. She'd found an airy vacancy.
...
For Diane, places like Brooklyn and the Bronx were as remote as Beirut and Teheran. Nobody went there. The subway system was an ugly rumor--she had not set foot in it for years.
p.66-7
There were the Street People and there were the Air People. Air People levitated like fakirs. Large portions of their day were spent waiting for, and traveling in, the elevators that were as fundamental to the middle-class culture of New York as gondolas had been to Venice in the Renaissance. It was the big distinction--to be able to press a button and take wing to your apartment. It didn't matter that you lived on the sixth, the sixteenth or sixtieth floor; access to the elevator was proof that your life had the buoyancy that was needed to stay afloat in a city where the ground was seen as the realm of failure and menace.
In block like Alice's, where doormen kept up a twenty-four-hour guard against the Street People, the elevator was like the village green. The moment that people were safely inside the cage, they started talking to strangers with cozy expansiveness.
...
Everyone I knew lived like this. Their New York consisted of a series of high-altitude interiors, each one guarded, triple-locked, electronically surveilled. They kept in touch by flying from one interior to the next, like sociable gulls swooping from cliff to cliff. For them, the old New York of streets, squares, neighborhoods, was rapidly turning into a vague and distant memory. It was the place where TV thrillers were filmed. It was where the Street People lived.
...
Diane, my friend of twenty years, had turned into an Air Person...
Her apartment was a rectangle of sunlight, adrift in the thin air of High Manhattan.
"It's sort of nowhere, really. That's what I like about New York--it's nowhere. Nowhere, with a view."
So it was. She'd found an airy vacancy.
...
For Diane, places like Brooklyn and the Bronx were as remote as Beirut and Teheran. Nobody went there. The subway system was an ugly rumor--she had not set foot in it for years.
November 18, 2011
Many years ago I took part in a discussion in the Guardian about the best travel books. I nominated Jonathan Raban for his book on travelling down the Mississippi by boat. I don't think Hunting Mr. Heartbreak is quite as good, but I have recently re-read it (I've re-read the Mississippi book, Old Glory, more often). I found I'd misremembered this one, as I was sure that part way through, somewhere in the South, he'd had a love affair. Not true. He spent many months in a little Alabama town, but with no recorded romantic involvement, before moving to Seattle. He doesn't appear to settle in Seattle, as it were, but heads off again to the Florida Keys, where the book ends. However, those of us who have read most of his books know that he did end up in Seattle, since many of his subsequent books are set there. Of all his books, I have only failed to enjoy two, so I have no hesitation in recommending this one. Written about 20 years ago, it now seems a little dated. However, it would be very interesting to go to Guntersville today (if that is the real name of the Alabama town) and check it out. Is it like it was - and surely he captured its essence? - in 1990, or has it moved on?
March 30, 2014
Some travel writing, like some travel, consists of the experience of going from one place to the other by train or car, seeing much of the terrain through a window. It is entirely possible to do this, to enjoy it, to learn a great deal from it, and to convey that learning through writing. Other traveling is like what Jonathan Raban does - he goes to a place and settles in, renting an apartment or house and getting to know the area and people in more detail, and then writing about it. This is one of my favorite examples of this type of travel writing - perhaps because I'm familiar with half of the places he visits in this book. He starts by crossing the Atlantic, and when he got to the U.S. I was already sorry that that part of the book was over, because I enjoyed the writing so much. His writing is detailed, humorous, and exquisite in its descriptive ability and choice of metaphor. He explores many aspects of the American experience, being especially knowledgable about the history of the places he visits. Not all of that is flattering, but he is never truly judgmental. We've all got problems, after all.
November 21, 2011
This is yet another "traveling through America" book, but this one is different. Jonathan Raban actually lives in the places he travels through, gets to know the people and becomes part of the neighborhood. He goes to Manhattan, Alabama, Seattle, and Key West. In each place, he wishes he could stay forever, except Manhattan. Although he enjoyed Manhattan, he had a hard time with the huge disparity between the people in the air and the people on the street. There was no middle class. In Alabama, he rented a dog because he thought it would help him fit in. He had never owned a dog before, and he came to love her. This was a sweet, enjoyable book.
May 28, 2007
A lighter read than usual, but still (supposedly) non-fiction. Raban travels from England to America on a frieght ship, lives in an apartment in NYC, moves to the deep South, and to Seattle, WA, and finally ends in the Florida Keys. His take on the US, as an Englishman, is entertaining and insightful. Raban has a gift for literary language, as he is also a writer of fiction. The title of the book is in reference to Crevecoeur, an immigrant who also wrote about the US, in an earlier century. (Also see Badland)
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August 24, 2015It's rare that travel writers write about experiencing a few places for long stretches. In this case, Raban explores four locales reflecting different facets of American life: New York, small town Alabama, Seattle, and the Florida Keys. And rather than trying to extract the "meaning" of America (a crime which both European and American writers are equally guilty of), he chooses description and meditation over rhapsody and grand narrative. And, personal bonus points, having recently moved back to Seattle, he managed to reaffirm every reason why I returned.
August 13, 2008
I liked this book quite well but I hate that it was stuck in the travel genre because it is very . . not. I appreciate the quantity and depth of the allusions that start with the title.
Lastly the reason I read it and found it so interesting was the section on Guntersville, it is amazing how much still rings true today about that community.
While I liked the book it was easy to get bogged by down but if you read it please persevere the end is worth it.
Lastly the reason I read it and found it so interesting was the section on Guntersville, it is amazing how much still rings true today about that community.
While I liked the book it was easy to get bogged by down but if you read it please persevere the end is worth it.
March 11, 2010
I haven't read Jonathan Raban for years because I didn't like his Old Glory. It seemed to me that he picked out the oddest people in his trip down the Mississippi River and mocked them in a sniveling English twit's manner. But this one about another American trip is more sympathetic. He stays in several places for months at a time: Guntersville, AL and Seattle most memorably. The best part is the trip across the Atlantic on a freighter.
June 27, 2014
Hunting Mister Heartbreak recalls vividly the author's time spent travelling through North America and is part travelogue, part memoir and part social history commentary. I found it hilarious and captivating in places, but painfully tedious in others, so it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I did pick up some more facts on American History which was interesting though.
May 11, 2011
Excellent, captivating writing style, rich vocabulary. The authors outsiders perspective on the American psyche enriches the readers repertoire of means to explain to foreigners why Americans are the way they are. Although this book is dated by its place in time, it is a wonderful recollection of that time and much of what he writes still rings true.
January 2, 2018
Cross the Atlantic by ship. Live in a sub-let dinky apartment in NYC. Live in an Alabama small town, then on to Seattle, and finally, the Florida Keys. I love this guy's writing skills, his intelligence, his insight. I've never read a travel book in my life. Now I'm going to read more. Thanks Jonathan Raban.
February 29, 2008
I think I saw brief flicker of interest disrupt my sudents' blank stares when I read them the section about Air People. And the chapter about Alabama makes me want a dog and a career as a travel writer.
May 20, 2009
best travel writer i have read
May 4, 2010
Aimlessly wandering.
December 17, 2010
Really dense but eloquent prose. An interesting take on American culture from someone who lives across the Atlantic. I loved it and recommend it.
December 20, 2010
It,s a witty and honest warts and all look at the good old USofA.One of the best I,v read.
July 16, 2011
it's good to read grown-up writing every once in a while. an added bonus was the section on seattle and korean migration, a subject i'm interested in right now.
August 25, 2017
This book is all over the place but in a rambling way that is enjoyable to follow. Interesting interlude in 1980s Seattle - seeing how little has really changed.
January 2, 2018
Good company and captivating descriptions.
February 7, 2019
Raban writes well but this title wasn’t as engrossing as his “Old Glory” or, my all time favorite, “Bad Land”.
August 14, 2019
In the wake of Hector St John de Crèvecoeur, a French-American ghost spirited from the 18th century, Raban follows the modern immigrant experience to America. I read this first almost 30 years ago. It made a deep impression, and several lifetimes on I have visited and spent time in the places in this book.
“America was turning everything upside down”.
People come still, looking for a new life. One they didn’t have to explain. Korean shopkeepers in Seattle, Liberian taxi drivers in New York promising to become the next Trump, Alabama fisherman on the lake - the black people on the shore, the white people on the boats - and the temporary company of an old Labrador Down South.
With the eye of the noir novelist, and the view of the Englishman abroad, Raban takes us on a deep trip from coast to coast; sea to shining sea, to see if this land really is still for you and me.
“I was looking for the end of America. Most things came to an end down on the Keys: English drifted into Creole, religion into natural magic, work into play and crime”.
“America was turning everything upside down”.
People come still, looking for a new life. One they didn’t have to explain. Korean shopkeepers in Seattle, Liberian taxi drivers in New York promising to become the next Trump, Alabama fisherman on the lake - the black people on the shore, the white people on the boats - and the temporary company of an old Labrador Down South.
With the eye of the noir novelist, and the view of the Englishman abroad, Raban takes us on a deep trip from coast to coast; sea to shining sea, to see if this land really is still for you and me.
“I was looking for the end of America. Most things came to an end down on the Keys: English drifted into Creole, religion into natural magic, work into play and crime”.
December 30, 2021
Travel literature at its best, with deep-dives into a variety of all-American locations, its people and culture. The innovative description of New York’s ‘Street People’ and ‘Air People’ is just one of the book’s many examples of Raban at work to decipher a particular place and describing its uniqueness to the armchair traveller. The book could have benefited from some further copy-editing, as its style is somewhat uneven in places, but overall a fine read.
March 7, 2023
It is the 1980s, and Jonathan Raban undertakes a journey by sea to America; upon arrival he samples life in four very different regions of the nation: New York City, rural Alabama, Seattle and the Florida Keys. Taking up temporary residence in each location, Raban immerses himself in local culture, meeting ordinary folks and befriending notable locals as well. With his natural curiosity and journalist's instinct for uncovering quirky stories Raban's tale is an enjoyable and fascinating read.
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July 3, 2020The title should be cautionary. Mr Heartbreak is John Berryman's nickname for the author Crevecouer (whose work Berryman translated). Raban's travels are inspired by Crevecouer's book Letters from an American Farmer. Beware of the fictions and misperceptions of Crevecouer and Raban as well. Enjoy some of the nostalgia and the local quaintness, the regional eccentricities.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews