Roads
Written by Larry McMurtry
Narrated by George Guidall
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
As he crisscrosses America -- driving in search of the present, the past, and himself -- Larry McMurtry shares his fascination with this nation's great trails and the culture that has developed around them.
Ever since he was a boy growing up in Texas only a mile from Highway 281, Larry McMurtry has felt the pull of the road. His town was thoroughly landlocked, making the highway his "river, its hidden reaches a mystery and an enticement. I began my life beside it and I want to drift down the entire length of it before I end this book."
In Roads, McMurtry embarks on a cross-country trip where his route is also his destination. As he drives, McMurtry reminisces about the places he's seen, the people he's met, and the books he's read, including more than 3,000 books about travel. He explains why watching episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show might be the best way to find joie de vivre in Minnesota; the scenic differences between Route 35 and I-801; which vigilantes lived in Montana and which hailed from Idaho; and the history of Lewis and Clark, Sitting Bull, and Custer that still haunts Route 2 today.
As it makes its way from South Florida to North Dakota, from eastern Long Island to Oregon, Roads is travel writing at its best.
Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry is the author of more than thirty novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove. He has also written memoirs and essays, and received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Brokeback Mountain.
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Reviews for Roads
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5boring and difficult to listen to? give it a pass!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5McMurtry is the schizzle - an excellent storyteller with extraordinary insights. I feel like this is a book best read (yourself) with your own permanent copy to scribble in the margins (thus making it a travel journal of two) and a book best set down occasionally to look up the interesting insights provoked by geography. This dashing across the country denies McMurtry the opportunity to do what he does best, which is to delve into the motivations and emotions of individuals. He does this well on a sociological scale (I'm pretty sure the outlet mall shopping opportunities in the Upper South in the 80s & 90s staved off many a major depressive episode among some of my family members), but it's not the same intimacy of his novels.
Not a fan of this narrator for this book. He's "leaning forward" all the way through in an irritating fashion (for me, at least).
Southern (and Texas) literature has a cadence and rhythm to it that should be honored in the narration and absolutely is not honored here.
Audio books have done wonders for increasing the number of books "read" while reducing the number of dirty dishes and laundry in my house, but if the narrator is going to read it like a carnival barker getting paid at a rate of words per second, then my laundry is just gonna have to pile up, because I can't take this assault on what I know to be good writing.