Small Town America Like No Other...

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	• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America Bill Bryson Harper Perennial, 1990 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 287 reviews view larger image
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A modern day Mark Twain?

Subtract 20 or 30 points from Mark Twain's IQ and you have Bill Bryson's "Lost Continent." It's funny at times, clever, vindictive, and mean-spirited in others, but it lacks the unique, eye-popping insights of a great comedy writer. Anybody with a sharp tongue and a sarcastic attitude could have written this book. (Why, says the reviewer jealously, didn't I write this book and make a lot of money?)

"Lost Continent" is Bryson's description of his automobile journey of nearly 14,000 miles in a rented Chevette to 38 states and innumerable small towns. He missed a few important states -- Texas and Florida, for example, but he describes towns like Tupelo, Mississippi -- birthplace of you-know-who -- and gives it a bit of a thumbs-up for the quality of its strip mall. There's a few other positive moments in the book, but most of the time Bryson appears to be having a wretched time, pouring out his spite at endless waitresses in cheap roadside cafes which don't measure up to his standards of refinement and cuisine. This is irritating. Bryson is an Iowan, for heaven's sake, and he should know that uppity behavior is looked down upon in middle America -- even if you live in England and write books. His description of his father and growing up in Iowa borders on being cruel.

Fortunately, Bryson seems to be honest about his own limitations and prejudices and that saves the book from being a elitist diatribe about the failings of the United States. His positive experiences in a few places -- Savannah, the Grand Canyon, and Storm Lake, Iowa leavens the negative sufficiently to make the book readable and he ends on a high note. You can zip through it in an hour or two while waiting for an airplane or a dentist.

Smallchief

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Small Town America Like No Other...

It was the coffee stain that first caught my attention. I was walking out of the bookstore and there sat a book with a coffee ring on it. I paused and smiled. The book looked like it came from my desk, coffee stain and all. I smiled at the yellow roadside sign with the red arrow. I had observed many of these as I crisscrossed the United States over the last several years. With all these associations, how could I not pause and begin reading?

A few minutes later I walked out of the bookstore with a smile and the book under my arm. Here was a kindred spirit, a sojourner lost in his own country, navigating his way through all that was familiar and strange.

Mr. Bryson encircles the United States in a large figure eight with Des Moines, Iowa in the center, as it should be. He covers every region of the nation, aghast and agape at what he sees. He describes it in dry prose punctuated by laugh-out-loud comments. Mr. Bryson is pithy and riotously funny.

If you are not planning on traversing the byways of the U.S. soon, by all means read this book now. If you have a trip planned, hold off reading this. Have your own experience, then pick up this book and see how many times your paths crossed. You'll laugh out loud too.

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reviews: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, page 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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