Interstate Hitch Hiking Through the State of a Nation

by Sayarer, Julian

• ISBN13: 9781910050934
• ISBN10: 1910050938
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781911350057
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-09-23
• Publisher: Arcadia Books

Summary

Winner of the STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR

"This book seems prophetic in the wake of Donald Trump and the current controversy over 'fake news'" Daily Telegraph

"One can't help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, postmodern genre" Sara Wheeler

Documenting Sayarer's real life journey hitchhiking across the US, this fascinating memoir tells the story of the forgotten people lost in their own country, grappling to find a voice in the vast political landscape of the US.

Recruited to work on a big documentary project, Julian goes to New York convinced he has hit big time at last. Finding the project cancelled he wanders the city streets and hitchhiking to San Francisco slowly starts to seem like the most sensible option for his career as a travel writer.

The story finds an unseen America in rough shape; Julian meets a place of Interstates, forgotten towns and food deserts, always grappling with the scale and energy of the US. Julian tells a tale of Steinbeck, Kerouac and the vast, thundering indifference of American geography and culture at the start of a new century.

"On the Road for the Occupy Generation" Open Democracy

"Sayarer is a precise and passionate writer . . . The vast energy of his commitment to discover, observe and communicate makes for engrossing, often incandescent prose. We need writers who will go all the way for a story, and tell it with fire. Sayarer is a marvellous example" HORATIO CLARE

Author Biography

Julian Sayarer is an author, journalist, and is often called an adventurer. He has cycled six times across Europe, and in 2009 broke the 18,000-mile world record for a circumnavigation by bicycle (Life Cycle). He has spent three years working as a cycle courier on the streets of London (Messengers), hitchhiked from New York to San Francisco (Interstate), and worked on books and documentary projects along the way. A politics graduate, Julian's writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, New Statesman, Aeon Magazine, and many others, including a host of cycling publications. He writes slow travel, his writing from the roadside a 12mph view of the world in passing.