Synopses & Reviews
As a child in England, Jonathan Raban read
Huckleberry Finn and dreamed of floating down the Mississippi. Thirty years later he realized his dream in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, navigating the river from Minneapolis to Morgan City, Louisiana, and producing a masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing that can be compared only to his own award-winning
Bad Land.
In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the Mississippi and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartland's estrangement from America's capitals of power and culture, and of its helpless nostalgia for its lost past. Witty, elegiac, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.
Review:
"Stunning...more successful than 99 percent of the books about America since de Tocqueville." The New York Times Book Review
Review:
"Vividly captures the texture of small-town everyday life....Old Glory has given us a fresh portrait of ourselves." Newsweek
Review:
"Wonderful....Mr. Raban is excellent company. He is a popcorn-popper of opinions." The New York Times
Synopsis:
The author of
Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from America's capitals of power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for its lost past. Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite,
Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.
About the Author
Jonathan Raban lives in Seattle, Washington.
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