THE GREAT AMERICAN BUS RIDE - Softcover

Kurtz, Irma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007292120 ISBN 13: 9780007292127

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2008

Synopsis

After more than thirty years as an expatriate, Irma Kurtz gave in to her growing curiosity about her American roots and set off on a grand adventure to explore 'the most baffling of all places' - by Greyhound bus. Taking only the barest necessitites for travel, she entered the vast network of America's bus routes and a seething, fleeting world of brief encounters and changing landscapes.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

”The truth is, I am a hussy of low appetites who yearns shamelessly for rough travel…Greyhound and I were made for each other.”

After more than thirty years as an expatriate, Irma Kurtz gave in to her growing curiosity about her American roots and set off on a grand adventure to explore ‘the most baffling of all places’ – by Greyhound bus. Taking only the barest necessities for travel, she entered the vast network of America’s bus routes and a seething, fleeting world of brief encounters and changing landscapes.

During the great loops of her journey back and forth across the continent, Kurtz was as fascinated by the people thrown up at random on each bus as by the places flashing by outside the window. She creates a vivid and highly entertaining portrait of America reflected in the hundreds of characters she observes fromthe close quarters of the bus. Feeling herself becoming ‘invisible’ as she passes into middle age, she senses a wonderful new freedom to watch and record other people.

This is America caught unawares, in the no-man’s-land between bus stations: a more truthful picture of it than we have come to expect, from a woman looking coolly at the truth about herself.

About the Author:

Irma Kurtz writes a regular column for Cosmopolitan. Her most recent books are ‘Dear London’ and ‘The Great American Bus Ride’. She was born in Jersey City, and is a graduate of Columbia University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007292120
• ISBN 13: 9780007292127
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320