Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey

by Colby Buzzell

"Nothing less than the soul of an extremely interesting human being at war on ourbehalf." —Kurt Vonnegut
A stunning portrait of modern America by Colby Buzzell, the critically acclaimed author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq. Recounting his five-month journey through the country, from its thriving coastlines to its rust-belt wrecks, Buzzell reveals a paradoxical landscape of American dreams both achieved and broken, manifest destinies claimed and refuted, and community ties pulled apart and patched together. In the tradition of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, Buzzell’s Lost in America uncovers the stark realities of our national character even as it explores the deepest questions of identity, unity, and fatherhood.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Biography, Memoir, American

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 23, 2011

About the author

Colby Buzzell is the author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq, Lost In America: A Dead End Journey, and Thank You For Being Expendable & Other Experiences. Buzzell served as an infantryman in the United States Army during the Iraq War. Assigned to a Stryker Brigade Combat Team in 2003, Buzzell blogged from the front lines of Iraq as a replacement for his habitual journaling back in the states. In 2004 Buzzell was profiled in Esquire's "Best and Brightest" issue. In 2007, Buzzell received the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize for My War: Killing Time in Iraq. The Washington Post in 2007 referred to his article "Digging a Hole All the Way to America" as "A Tour de Force Travelogue," and his article "Down & Out In Fresno and San Francisco" was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2010. His work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Penthouse, Time, The Bold Italic and on This American Life. Buzzell holds a B.A. in History from the University of West Virginia and is currently pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at UCR Palm Desert. He currently lives in San Francisco, California.

Reviews

[RandomAnthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell’s >Lost in America is a weird but likable book. It’s weird because, well, it doesn’t carry much of a focus or a point. I guess Buzzell starts with the idea of doing a Kerouac thing (I don’t know or care much about Kerouac, so I’m not sure if he did it correctly or whatever) but seems to blow off the idea within the first few pages. Instead, he drives around the country and works shitty jobs through the book’s first half. He smokes cigarettes and drinks in cheap SRO hotels. He thinks about race and class and his wife and kid. Around Lost in America’s halfway point he settles in Detroit, hooks up with the denizens of a well-run SRO, and takes photographs of decaying infrastructure. So...the book’s not about much. Still, I liked Lost in America. Buzzell writes in a breezy, unpretentious style and manages to mock himself without sounding self-conscious. His inner monologues on poor people, the disappearing middle class, and his personal history flow well. I mean, the dude had to write a second book, right, because that’s what you do after you write a book? Although Lost in America lacks a storyline center well, that’s okay. It’s still pretty cool.

[Robert Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell, wittingly or not, has not only crafted a lasting piece of work, he's also succeeded in setting a brilliantly disguised snare in which even advanced readers will be trapped. Let the simple high school book report regurgitations begin! From the reviews of Lost in America that I've read to date, not a single person has escaped that deadly snare which is, without cunning, hidden in plain sight. He offers the casual reader nothing but starkly naked self-deprecating truths which are irresistible bait … as in a bait car ... the kind the police use to trap dimwitted thieves.

He even commits a technical sin right at the book’s outset by telling the hapless what they are about to be told … and why .... then, amazingly, they (based upon the reviews thus far I’ve read) actually believe that’s what the story is all about. They (reviewers) seem to believe that they also actually understand Buzzell (makes me chuckle) and might have even wondered to themselves why they were reading what painfully seems to be nothing more than an unremarkable discovery journal of yet another barfly with writer’s itch. Several reviewers I noticed followed that second blind path. For crying out loud, he even tells you it’s a dead end journey right in the title and you still didn’t get it. Here's a hint ... once you think the work is about him, or mimicking Kerouac, or his unpolished skills, or his near trance inducing laconic style, or his excessive drinking or obsession with seedy hotels and cigarettes or vintage anything or even his dark fascination with fill-in-the-blank underbelly of wherever ... you've been snared and the book really has no further use of you. If you’ll recall when he casually flicks his cigarette ash on the carpet while enjoying some wine straight from the bottle in his dirtbag hotel room … that’s his opinion of your perspective. Granted, he would probably be much kinder about telling you such.

Concisely, this true tale well told can be summed up in a single word: deception. And the elimination thereof. More specifically … self deception at the individual level as well as the collective … families, groups, races, communities and most startling … as a nation. You’re all in denial to one extent or another and nowhere near as brave as you should be about confronting your own frailty and failures. Disgree? Who in the hell among you has the will to drive U.S. 50 alone … through the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, for mile upon tedious mile piloting a 45 year old original unrestored condition Mercury not even knowing when it will break down next or where the next gas station might be let alone whether or not the person sitting behind the wheel of the next set of headlights that comes up behind you might be a serial killer. Quite frankly, you don’t have the balls to do it … nor the courage to be ultimately real about who you are and why. Like most of us, you deceive. You deceive yourself and you deceive others around you. You closet your failures and hide your frailties and shun the less fortunate. You run from the problem, not toward the solution. You wrap yourself in the high R value insulation of deception. Let’s face it, you’re not even you anymore … just something or someone that you pass off as you more often than not. Genuine article … my ass. America the beautiful ? America the Superpower? You’ve screwed those up too. You think Buzzell is a screw up? Think again sport, and this time, actually read the book.

Buzzell shows you how it’s done …. stripping you of your ever growing menagerie of mascara, hair mousse, photoshopped pictures, fake facebook friends, teeth whiteners, your new Prius, your diploma (insert alma mater of distinction here) your (insert impressive inch size here) flatscreen TV that you got on sale at Walmart (or some other soulless big box store), your latest (please don’t bore us with the pictures) vacation, whatever. You’re such a phony. Using himself as the foil, he disturbingly reveals your core undeniable weaknesses. His alcohol problem is your shopping problem, or porn problem, or you name it problem. You want to escape, but cannot. He wanted to escape too. Beginning to get it? The only solution you have is to continue the adventure even though you know it’s in large part just a charade … a dead-end journey. His wanderlust my ass … it’s your wanderlust and you’ve always had it. His indulgences? I think not, they’re yours and you’ve always had them … you just don’t have the nerve to put them on display and deal with them. His unadulterated self-deprecation is genuine and dazzlingly unique. More genuine than perhaps you’ve ever been, even momentarily, in your entire life, even with yourself. It’s mundane, in parts, because you are … everyone is now and then, if not mostly. Crushingly real. In fact, this book is the equivalent of what reality TV would be … if it were actually real, or interesting, or redeeming.

Ready for more reality? No problem. Most adults are primarily fear based motivated. Deterrence is very powerful and risk mitigation makes the world go around. Fundamentally, it’s game theoretical in that you’re strategically incentivized to mitigate risk in response to ever present fears. The beauty of his character, who fortunately or unfortunately for you is not a fictional one, is that he is the exception. He doesn’t have the fear of exposure and is riddled with flaws. He isn’t necessarily sharing his flaws, he’s helping you discover and understand yours. When that bird hits his windshield in the book … that was the person that you refused to help even though you should have. When he stands alone as a stranger at a backyard party in a Detroit neighborhood where revival is underway … that’s you who snubbed him, you pompous self-absorbed asshole. When he expertly mocks the Columbia School of Journalism graduates at the Time Magazine's Green Zone (what a joke, who reads that drivel) house, his magnifying glass of truth has you and your practically worthless college degree in (fill in your college major here please) from wherever (because they're all diploma mills now - only the few escape with a real education and a corresponding degree of merit that might be useful to a nation in atrophy) squarely upon you. Sure, your parents are proud of you, but they also congratulated you the first time you successfully took a sh*t. Layer upon layer, one seemingly innocuous scene after another, he flays the human psyche wide open, refusing to blush. Only once does he himself turn away, when looking at his own reflection in a dark BART tunnel after privately grieving to his now dead and thus silent mother. His secret shame at that moment is a shame you’ve felt. Say you haven’t and you’re either a liar or a fool … or both. His mother is everyone’s beloved mother … or should be. Her broken English advice is simple, timeless and undeniable. Veritable pearls cast before you know-it-all swine. Dammit, if only Buzzell had listened … if only you were listening now.

He offers more unassailable kernels of truth …. such as Middle Easterner shopkeepers who (accustomed to violent conflict as a daily way of life) have come to Detroit and will only work behind protective glass as juxtapositioned against an aging white couple (the Harrington’s) who run a shabby inner city hotel in crime central and consider it an insult to themselves and those around them to do the same (protective glass) even though they’ve been mugged and beaten several times. Go ahead, we’re all American … you take your pick. Who are you? Chicken shit.

Pick any chapter and you’ll find yourself, if you dare. Go ahead, read the chapter on Unsuccessful Men with Talent and tell yourself that the content doesn’t parallel your own life at some point at one time or another. Yeah right … you coulda’ been a contender.

So, you selfish and lazy little bitch/prick, do you really want to know how badly we’re screwing each other while insisting we’re not the problem and that somebody needs to fix this mess we’re in here in America? OK, here you go. Try chapter sixteen, Sunday Stripper. It’s no secret that heterosexual men dig women and will always look at nude or semi-nude women ... even ugly ones. Women and alcohol ... think cocktail. Buzzell was there (strip club) for the only reason anyone goes to a strip club. Get real, it's the same reason you or your husband/boyfriend does. Because he (Buzzell) is your husband/boyfriend, he offers an incredibly lame excuse for being there that he thinks is plausible …. which of course, is not. More strikingly, he offers the instant classic line “It was like they all (the strippers) had given up on trying to get money from the men, and the men had given up in giving a shit”. Jesus H … men were born to look at and pay for (we all pay for it one way or another) it. Hopes and dreams pulverized into granules too tiny to reconstruct. We’re that pathetic … we’re all wrapped so tight right now, captivated by fear, waiting for the media to buzz us with the next round of OMG doom. I'm guessing you don't tip very well and if you do still donate to charity, it’s probably only when other people are sure to notice and in no instance will you help a person of color … directly anyway. Oh, and let me guess, you’ve read enough local newspaper articles to know when a panhandler doesn’t really need the money. As for homeless or at-risk vets, you totally suck. They earned your freedom, many died for it, and you have never reciprocated sufficiently. You got yours. I hear you loud and clear brother. F-you.

Seriously smart readers will someday “get” this book and when they do, legions of Wayfarer wearing wannabes will venture forth to breathe in Buzzell’s smoky essence in places like the Kum & Go gas station in Cheyenne and the Park Avenue Hotel in Detroit and elsewhere. With any luck, he’ll ignore every urge to revisit the landscape he’s so deftly captured. Its stark simplicity is its splendor and it stands as a perfect post-modern reflection of an imperfect America disintegrating before our very own eyes … and at our very own hands.

His fantasy escape is like most all others ... usually not an effective strategy, but an alluring form of self-deception. Homer created the category with Odysseus a few thousand years back. Conveniently, the name Odysseus is greek for trouble and Buzzell is extremely faithful in trying to find such at every possible turn of his journey. Roadtrips are an excuse, a vehicle, .... its a deceptively (wink) simple premise. My dear political friends, that includes Mr. Barack Obama and his country criss-crossing, campaign barnstorming, town halling road trip that touted the miracle elixir of change. Get real, you knew it was a stretch. He was the safe, unoffensive, smart one even if he is a little haughty. Ah yes, risk aversion, that sounds familiar. It’s not his fault, it’s yours. You bought it, then you fought it noting that it's pretty clear nobody was going to come out a winner regardless of who was elected. Seriously, being the President is difficult under the best of conditions. Without rancor though, Buzzell lets us know that even coal black Detroit isn’t buying the Obama snakeoil anymore which is good news because the Motor City, at least according to the book by Buzzell that I read, is moving on … no longer in denial or begging for a handout. We all need to move on. The Detroit in the book that I read is not a desolate wasteland. It’s picking itself off the canvas, wielding self-reliance, threatening the spectre of despair with person by person determination and savvy resourcefulness. A body doesn’t recover from blows like Detroit took quickly. They won’t be down forever, not that sweat, not that muscle, not that American pride. Those people work, they need to be led, but they will wear the yoke. Detroit is nothing if not our call of duty. The great American story has always been that there is another shot, a comeback, a chance at redemption, a new start. Like any 12 step or self-improvement program, you’ve got to get past the deception first, then you’ve got to put some skin in the game.

A gritty and dark brooding tale of a boozing loser frequenting flophouses who ends up in a rundown rustbelt town? … maybe to a Time Magazine reader. The book that I read is a two-way mirror with a polarized film coating to block out all of your double secret bullshit rationalizations. You just need to step around to the other side and see what the naked truth really looks like … if you think you can handle it. If so, smile, perhaps there is hope for you yet.

[Mscout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey is Colby Buzzell’s response to his publisher’s pitch to update an American classic. Instructed to “retrace Kerouac’s footsteps and paint a contemporary portrait of America” and to write “a love letter to Kerouac”, Buzzell wholeheartedly agrees and immediately cashes the advance check. And also immediately lets the reader know “Like hell I am.” This is no homage to Kerouac or classic American literature.

The book opens with a quote from Kurt Cobain and each succeeding chapter opens with yet another in the same nihilistic vein. Very little of the book has to do with the trip Buzzell took across the country. It is more of a travel guide on his road to some semblance of grown-up life as well as a meditation on family. Twin earthquakes struck in quick succession: his mother’s death and his son’s birth. He chose to delay the trip for the first, but not the second. Buzzell remarked on several occasions that he needed to find the plot. Where would the book go? What was the hook? It is easy to see and surmise that this applied to his life as well as to the writing assignment.

For all intents and purposes, the six-month trip ended in Detroit. For Buzzell, this city is Ground Zero for the disaffected and disowned. Suicide is mentioned more than once, and one could argue that his actions in Detroit were a form of passively attempting such. He also used the city to draw a parallel between Kerouac’s Beat Generation and today’s beat down generation. He repeatedly referred to the city, the buildings and occupants as looking as though they had recently suffered a scud missile attack.

Ostensibly travelling across the country looking for and working odd jobs, Buzzell spent a great deal of the book drinking, drunk or hung over. It is hard to imagine that this is the approach someone would take if they were actually trying to pay the rent. In some ways, he’s a very unlikable character. It’s not just the alcohol; this world does that to people. It’s not that he ran from his responsibilities; many have run far further from far less. Perhaps it’s his constant over-justification. A common theme throughout the book is his lack of self-confidence, yet he seems absolutely confident, righteous even, in justifying his actions. None of this makes Lost in America a bad book. After all, America loves her villains almost as much as she loves her heroes.



Available 23 August 2011

[Sam Reaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell served with the 101st Airborne in Iraq and wrote a terrific memoir about it (see my review); after leaving the army he bounced around a little, got divorced, drank a lot and struggled with PTSD, in short having a not atypical experience for a veteran. His distinction was to write it all down with little artifice or inhibition, producing a number of interesting pieces for Esquire and other publications. This book is a record of a cross-country road trip Buzzell took on assignment from a publisher in 2008, in the wake of his mother's death and the birth of his son. Driving east across the continent, he took odd jobs, stayed in flophouses, took a lot of pictures and hung with his peers, the folks not doing all that well in early 21st century America. Overshadowing the whole thing were the personal issues. It's a bit unfocused, a bit ragged, but it has the frankness and vitality of all Buzzell's writing. Outsider writing from a keen observer of the plight of blue-collar America.

[cheryl]

I love that reading for Harper let's me explore outside my usual fiction rules. I don't read a ton of memoirs but was very intrigued by Colby Buzzell's Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey. The Iraq war vet who had recently lost his mother and had his first child (the former gets a lot more discussion in the text), sets out with the instruction to live a modern-day On The Road. With a few interruptions, he travels in an old car, focusing on towns tourists tend to skip, back-roads, and less-than-savory motels. He has a clear interest in the underbelly world...by that, I mean more the very working-class, simple folks that people often overlook (and who have been hit hard by the economy). Usually, he mentions but doesn't encounter a heavy-duty criminal element.


This was a quick read. And I enjoyed it at times. I usually note I need to find characters interesting, but not necessarily likeable. Maybe this just doesn't translate for memoirs because not being a fan of the author, who plows through too much liquor and is ignoring the fact that he has a wife and son, really impacts me in this case. I'd normally feel reticent to say that...I'm guilt-prone and don't want to insult...but I don't think Buzzell would care. I also think he tends to gloss over the fact that he ISN'T just one of the "trying to make ends meet" types he pals around with...he has a book deal, an existing writing career, and is able to fly away a couple times during the journey (with really no note about how incongruous this is to his "I'm one of them" style).


It is an easy read and part of me did have fun with it, but I'm stuck at 3 stars for the taste it left behind.

[RYCJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Buzzell's memoir was a self-discovery calling. The delivery… the gentle, melodious tone in the face of honestly parting with thoughts and feelings was very well captured. I empathized with him describing what being a loner felt like, and thus easily understood how a young man already lost in this isolated space, who’d experienced IRAQ and losing his mother, would not be prepared to manage family. I vigilantly rooted for a satisfying... which I cannot give away. Overall, well done!

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. Author travels around the U.S. getting odd jobs & spending time with different people. He ends up in Detroit & this part of the book was excellent! Very interesting!

[Russel Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Buzzell's blog and his first book was as good a present-sense impression of the War in Iraq as I've yet read. I was less enthusiastic about this book, however. It deserved better from an editor, before and after the road trip. Too many mistakes that should have been caught. The book was one part Travels with Charley and one part Nickel and Dimed and fell short of both aims. Ehrenreich's work, flawed though it was, involved a comprehensible plan - find a job, make meaningful connections with people, reduce to writing. Buzzell really forged a meaningful, interesting connection with one couple, and that - along with his Detroit writing - shined. His other forays were short and not especially interesting, even if the stray kernel of humor or personal interest came through. And Travels with Charley succeeded because its readers were familiar with Steinbeck's writing style and with Steinbeck, while Buzzell is somewhat more inscrutable as a person and an author. The idea was interesting, the author was interesting, but the execution seemed like a missed opportunity. Perhaps had the Recession continued, things would have held up better. However, an improving economy over the last several years has made the undercurrent of personal and national despair - at least the one he profiled - seem more fleeting. It's worth a read, but it could have been much better.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell, an Iraq war veteran with PTSD who’s had a memoir published and written a lot for assorted magazines and the like, was commissioned to take a road trip across the US and write, quote-unquote, a “love letter to Kerouac”. These plans were rather hampered by real life in the form of his mother’s terminal illness and the impending birth of his son. The book opens with a series of false starts as Buzzell, conflicted, uncertain and most likely in denial as to the true state of his mother’s health, postpones the planned start of his trip, with the result that he then ends up setting off right after his son is born. All this gives us some context as to why (in addition to the PTSD) our author may be a little all over the place. How’s the guy supposed to concentrate on writing a North American travelogue while he’s weeks into new fatherhood and trying to mourn his mother at the same time? A few reviewers have laid into Buzzell for this, but I’ll refrain from doing so. It’s irrelevant, it’s none of my damned business, and besides, I have no idea how much he may have been depending on his book advance to support his new family. The guy is also extremely upfront about it, so, really, move along, there’s no “Runaway Road Trip Douche-Dad” scandal here. Were he still in the military there’s every chance he’d have been deployed thousands of miles away before/during/after the birth of his son and received all kinds of support, so a little less judgment would be nice here.

OK, where was I? Ah yes. Once he finally gets going, Buzzell pretty much stumbles across the North American continent, drifting from town to town in search of… something. It’s as if there is some kind of plot here, some kind of narrative, but Buzzell has no idea what or where it might be and just doesn’t have it in him at this point to find the thread. So what we get is him driving until he’s sick of driving and low on gas, then pulling up in some random and often unnamed town. At this point he’ll check into the nearest hotel that meets the criteria of being a) cheap and b) not part of a cookie-cutter chain, then, for want of anything better to do, heading straight to the first dive bar he can find and getting drunk. Very drunk. He’ll spend a while in some of the places he stops off at, doing a bit of day labor here and there and drinking during his off-duty (and even on-duty) hours, finally realizing there’s nothing for him there, at which point he’ll hit the road in search of more of the same.

All this paints a very bleak picture of the places Buzzell travels through, but you know what? I wouldn’t mind betting it’s a truthful one. People are broke. There’s not much work. What work there is is badly-paid. There’s precious little optimism to go around, and life pretty much sucks. Sure, there are other, more heartwarming and poignant stories to be told, but at this point, Buzzell is not the guy to be telling them. You can tell the author is pretty damned depressed and feeling utterly directionless, it comes across with painful clarity in his writing. He’s genuinely lost in America, and the America he's travelling through feels pretty lost too. He doesn’t know where to go and it seems like there really is nowhere to go. He doesn’t seek out the ‘good’ places to present to the reader, instead he gravitates naturally towards the hopeless and the lost and the misfits. I get the impression that the first half of the book is about Buzzell despairing as to how he’s ever going to write a book, and what it’s going to be about.


At which point our decrepit hero rolls up in Detroit, and everything somehow falls into place. From what I can make out, he falls in love with the city almost at first sight. He checks into a non-chain hotel, just like he does everywhere else, but this place is special. Buzzell describes the hotel and its owners in such a way that I almost want to go and find it, and move in. It’s run by an old couple who seem to regard each and every one of their guests as part of their extended family, treating them with the kind of solicitousness you’d expect them to reserve for wayward grandchildren rather than paying boarders. Once set up in the hotel, Buzzell sets out to explore as much of Detroit as he possibly can, gravitating as though compelled by some perverse deathwish straight towards all the neighborhoods that his worried hosts beg him to steer clear of. He also whips out his camera and for the first time during his trip, feels inclined to really document what’s around him.

I would like to read more from this author. I like the glimpses we get into his head, the observations he throws out there, his sense of humor and his sardonic way of looking at things. The second half of Lost in America makes the whole thing worthwhile. I’ve never been to Detroit and must confess to knowing next to nothing about the place, but came away from reading this book wanting to take a trip up there and find out what it’s really like. I found myself staying up late into the night reading about the locations Buzzell had visited and looking at endless photos of the city, both in its heyday and now in its state of extreme decline. Colby Buzzell, you ought to consider addressing your next love letter to Detroit. I think it would be beautiful.

[Amy Galloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times, this was a difficult book to read because of the author's experiences in "lost" cities in current America. However, it is worth reading for a real feel for what is going on in recession America in hard hit cities like Detroit. [My young adult daughter recommended this book to me which also inspired me to keep reading.]

[Bobo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Accidentally found this book and never regret read it.

[Matthew Fife]

I received this book from one of the free give-aways, and to be perfectly honest, I thoroughly enjoyed it, mostly. I could have lived without the frequent use of curse words, quite happily actually, but I understand the reason for it.

This book chronicles Mr. Buzzell's journey through America, and the journey within himself, as he floats from place to place, working when he could, moving on when he couldn't. He writes about his experiences interacting with every-day Americans as they fight to make ends meet, so that they, too, can live the American Dream (well, the new American dream).

The parts I found most interesting had almost nothing to do with his physical journey. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the interactions with some of the more colorful characters along the way, from Wyoming to Detroit, and everything before and in between. Those interactions gave the story an anchor, something that let you know that you were in fact reading something that had a beginning and an end. They helped illustrate that in the world there are good people, bad people, and people that are just trying to do their best to make ends meet in the current American economy. What I loved was seeing the change that took place in Mr. Buzzell because of his journey and because of the people he met.

But beware, you have to be very patient to see any sign of change. In fact, if you don't read the last couple of pages you miss it altogether. But because you travel with him to all the shady motels, to all the bars, to all the abandoned buildings of Detroit, you can look back and see how each experience played a part, and those are the stories that I love. Without the personal side notes, without the stories about his mother, without all of that sort of stuff, this book would have been terrible. It would have just been a "These are the places not to go on vacation" sort of book, or a "Stay away from any place that remotely resembles this sort of place if you value your personal safety and the health of your children, born and unborn" book. But combined with all the different aspects of the narration, this book is actually touching.

If I had to classify this book, I would say it was more coming-of-age than travelogue, and even that is hard to say. It's about how and why he became who he wanted to be.

Granted, I could be completely wrong, but that's what I got from it. If you won't burn the book because of all the swearing and the acts of dubious morality, then I recommend this book to you. If any of those offend you, I would recommend against it.

[Georgette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell is feeling overwhelmed. He's just lost his mother to cancer and become a father for the first time. In a moment of insight brought on by repeated readings of ON THE ROAD, he decides he needs to get away from everything(yes, despite the fact that he's a new father). He feels the need to find himself again by traveling America's byways and backways. He does just that, going from San Francisco's Tenderloin district to Denver to the frightening goal posts thrown at him by Des Moines, Iowa(where they have four boxes of people "banned" from the city; Buzzell isn't even allowed to check into the hotel until they make sure he isn't banned!), to the lonely existence of Omaha, Nebraska, to the unknown-of-job mecca that is Cheyenne, Wyoming(I'm not joking). Of all the places he visits, I have to say the chapter that amused me and intrigued me the most was Detroit, Michigan. You hear Detroit nowadays, you think of the hit they've taken with the automobile industry collapsing inwards. However, Colby manages to paint Detroit with a golden paintbrush, making you aware just how hard-working and fighting the residents are, taking hit after hit in this economical downturn and still managing to keep a positive attitude and never giving up. He also finds himself completely swept up in the architecture that used to be a part of Detroit's charm, and you find yourself saddened that much of it is gone or on a list to be razed at a later date, most of the time for condos that most residents were loath to afford. Detroit, by far, impressed me(as well as Buzzell, who at one point calls his wife and asks her if they can sell their house and MOVE to Detroit permanently, which is, of course, vetoed.) more than many of the other spots he ended up at in his sojourn. Along with Colby's musings and observations of the towns he goes through, he also looks for-and lands- a job in just about every town, and that's another amusing sidenote- he works at a list of amusing jobs- construction, an ice cream truck vendor(that's a great chapter, hillarious when you think to yourself that you've never considered ice cream truck vendor as a high-risk job, until this chapter.), and his favorite- working at the Salvation Army.
All in all, a great little trip through America's Dust Bowl country, and a great little book as well.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

Colby Buzzell's memoir of a life on the road, apparently searching for nothing more meaningful than the next buzz and some labor to pass the day, is a disappointment. Perhaps doomed from the outset; his mission is compromised because he operates under the auspices of a book advance while trying to pass as one of the miserable folks he familiarizes with in his travels. This yields a clear level of dis-ingenuousness that makes the whole adventure seem like a dare rather than the gritty reality of someone living the life he only briefly assumes. It's one thing to investigate and report from a distance, but Buzzell tries to slip into the sewers undetected. He might have fooled the people he hung out with, but he doesn't fool his readers. Maybe this isn't such a big deal for some, but it was an irritant for me and kept me from losing myself fully in his tale.

The man travels across the country on a mission to discover something profound, or at the very least get his head around his own life, and he offers little more than minor observations and plenty of misguided machismo centered on his sophomoric ideas of what it means to be an American or even a man. His final summation? Things could always be worse, people survive, and the world turns. Thanks for the insight, Colby.

Buzzell's writing style is as no-frills as the flop houses he crashes in and after a while it is repetitive and dull. There is little humor, little insight, and little interest in this rambling indulgent exercise. I read about an America with few job opportunities for unskilled labor. I read about the pros and cons of Wal-Mart. I read further about what to expect in a vagabond hotel. Oh, and I read about a guy who purposely ignores the imminent responsibilities that scream for his attention in order to capitalize on a paid-for slumming voyage across the Midwest. I think he would've done better writing of his struggle to face his own fears about being a parent and a good husband.

In short, this is what you'd expect from the thousands upon thousands of wannabe voices of a generation scrawling in their composition books after a trip of self-discovery. I appreciate what Colby has done in his service to the country, but perhaps he needs something on the level of the hell of war to work as his muse instead of this half-hearted attempt at recreating someone else's work.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn in by this author's open and real conversation with himself. Despite the use of the "f" word rather much at the beginning, I continued to read and could feel an authentic person talking from the heart. His heart and experiences seemed much different than mine but strangely familiar. His choices in life of places and daily activities were alien to me but the openness of his dialog was at once revealing, cogent, and truthful and at the same time, strangely heartwarming. As the author progresses toward the end of his physical journey across the country and as his attitudes change, one wonders if he will ever see the despair he chooses in his daily activities and the big world outside his narrow view of the world and his dead-end choices of drug filled non-existence. The fact that his mother's demise was such an overriding influence in his writing was like the thread that kept pulling both him and the reader along. His testament to the deterioration of Detroit is chilling and frightening really. As he comes to sense the eternal hope brought forth through a new life, one also begins to have hope for the future of this country. Well done, and a remarkable treatise on the value of life and hope and continual trying.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Colby Buzzell's Iraq War memoir My War . If, like me, you read that one and grew to really like Buzzell, you'll probably want to read this one, which is like taking a post-deployment road trip with him across the US.

Like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which to me, is mainly a book about grieving even though it hardly ever mentions grief directly after the first few chapters, this book feels to me like one that is mainly about grief and the aftermath of combat, although Buzzell doesn't spend huge amounts of time talking about either. You could read this simply as a Kerouac-ian trip across the US and I think it would still be really good—he meets lots of interesting characters and makes plenty of compelling observations of life in the Great Recession. But reading it as a story about a guy I've come to really like dealing with the effects of death and combat is what tore my heart out.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Buzzell's first book: 'My War: Killing Time in Iraq'. He writes with gritty realism that kept me spellbound throughout most of that book. After he came from Iraq, he suffered from PTSD, but kept writing articles for various mags, including Esquire. So when he came out with book #2, I eagerly snatched it up. Things seemed to have improved for him by now, this book details part of his journey back to a 'normal life'. He still writes evocatively about his Mom, his family and his struggle to make sense about life. His being half-Asian made me empathize with him more...

The book was a fast read, he talks about this journey being a Kerouac-esque one and there are some poignant moments, but I'm just really glad he's doing better.

I think the part about his relationship with his mom affected me the most. There is a beacon of hope at the end of that long tunnel, and that makes me happy.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buzzell bought a classic car and set out from his home in San Francisco to drive across America with no specific destination. He chose seedy hotels and even seedier bars on his journey. He apparently alternated between being drunk and hung over. The book opens with the illness and death of his mother, and closes with a description of his son's birth. Both events set this journey of discovery in motion.

Buzzell explores and photographs once magnificent buildings, now abandone and decrepit. These buildings become metaphors for the once bustling, alive cities of America. Buzzell chats up people on the street, always drawn to the "bad side of town." He uncovers despair and apathy, and comes to the conclusion that there is no longer a middle class in the United States.

His sharp powers of observation and keen wit make this memoir a fascinating read.

[Codymarie Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it's because I'm around the same age, grew up in the same area, and have had or have friends/family that have had similar life experiences but, this is was great. I love the sarcastic humor, intentional or not and this story, memoir has touched a nerve in me.

I've read that some readers say that it has the feel of a high school report, and yes at times it does but, it's an honest look at the state of our country that few have had the voice to announce. It's a candid look at a man caught between grief and finding himself, challenging the norms or abiding by the road less traveled. It's the kind of read that explains what happens when you decide to find yourself regardless of the convention that others expect.

[Karen Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book capitalizes on the premise that everyone has a story, if you just take the time to talk to them and get to know them a little. Mr. Buzzell does that, and is nice enough to pass it along. Technically good also, especially since this was an uncorrected proof copy. The plot left this reader wondering how his wife lets him leave her for such a long time! I find it sad that he is more interested in meeting street people in Detroit than spending time with his wife and son. However, that's his business and perhaps the reader shouldn't question his style. He does, however, call it "A Dead-End Journey."

[Streator Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read several of Colby's articles in Esxquire and elsewhere. I like Colby's devil may care writing style quite a lot. This is the first of his books that I have read. Sort of an ode to Jack Kerouac updated to modern times (well 2009 anyway), it reads in a like minded most stream of consciousness manner. It basically a story of his drive around America for no particular reason. Mostly it rings true and is pretty funny in parts. But also rather depressing in its overall take on what's happening the good old U S of A today. But hopefully, this election will change all that...... Nonetheless, a quick, fun read.

[Boozy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially i wasn't real sure about this, I wouldnt say that this is anything like kerouac, nor his previous pieces regarding the war. As for a trip across the US, i found it somewhat disjointed, although his observations were interesting they didnt really say to much about the US as a whole, it seemed to be a snapshot of a small subsection of America. I did find that the authors willingness to discuss his loss of his mother as well as how well articulated it was to be superb, i highly applaud it. Overall, i liked the book and hope that Colby Buzzell continues to evolve as a writer.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gritty, fearless and ballsy memoir. This guy goes through doors and talks to people that would terrify me. This was a quick read. And I enjoyed it at times. I found Colby to be interesting, but not necessarily likeable. I did tear up when he describes his dying mother, but for the most part, the story was repetitive and a bit dull.

[ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about a war veterans journey across the seemy side of America. My favorite parts were how Detroit was described. Since I have no plans to go explore downtown Detroit at this time thank you to the author to tell me about it. Colby Buzzell has the courage to become part of the America that no one wants to think about. He does find good in people that would scare me.

[Devan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy a good travelogue and this was well done. I liked the fact the author didn't force himself from place to place just to fill the book (in fact spending most of the time in one place). There is good insight into how the working poor are struggling further deepening my cynicism unfortunately. I'll be interested to see the author's next book.

[harrie kd · Rating 4 out of 5]

really liked this book, it was an interesting picture of america as things are today, from an interesting perspective. i thought the writer talked a lot of sense, and so did many of the ordinary people he met on the way. plus it was funny, nicely written and quite touching in parts too :)

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raw and gritty trip across the country, showing a side of the US that I don't have much experience with. My favorite parts were the powerful description of dealing with loss in the first chapter, and the section exploring Detroit towards the end of the book.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, raw and emotional. A sad road trip by a guy with a not-so-questionable death wish. Made me teary eyed and my that is extremely rare for a book to do. Could have been a tad more organized but overall well written.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please see review on Amazon.com as part of the vine program.

[Steven Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very dark portrait of america. factotum on the road.