Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

by Hank Stuever

In his unique, funny, and haunting reports from "Elsewhere," Hank Stuever records the odd and touching realities of modern life in everyday places. Elsewhere might be revealed in the tract-house adventures of a home-décor reality show, at a discount funeral home in a strip mall, or in the story of an armed man named Honey Bear in the hunt for his beloved but now missing sleeper sofa which he left in a store unit. Off Ramp shows us America through the humorous gaze of Hank Stuever, who finds beauty in the midst of the most unlikely and invisible lives and places.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Essays, Social Commentary

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

Hank Stuever was born in 1968 in Oklahoma City and grew up there, and left, and got into journalism. He worked for newspapers in Albuquerque and Austin in the 1990s and then at The Washington Post for 26 years, first as a features reporter, then as TV critic, then as an editor and eventually as head of the features department. He left the Post in 2025.

OFF RAMP, a collection of his feature stories and essays, was published in 2004. His 2009 book, TINSEL, follows three suburban families in Frisco, Texas, through three Christmases. He lives in Washington, DC.

Reviews

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love Sedaris, you will love Hank Stuever. I appreciate him more, because he's a journalist, which means he's telling wickedly delicious satirical stories about real people. Not just embellishing them about himself (don't get me wrong, I heart Sedaris, but have agreed to disagree with his definition of "creative non-fiction.")

That being said, if you like off-beat stories and good story-telling, pick up Hank's book.. I read lots of news stories every day, and I don't know he does it, but Hank even manages to make a story about plastic chairs interesting! I worship this guy!

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hank Stuever is a writer for the Washington Post's Style section. He writes thoughtful, sometimes hauntingly beautiful essays about people, places and things we don't expect to read thoughtful, hauntingly beautiful essays about. Funeral homes set up in strip malls. Plastic chairs. A 30-year-old waterbed store nestled along some rundown highway. One of the pieces in here, about a ridiculously overblown yet totally arbitrary wedding in New Mexico, is one of the better nonfiction pieces I've ever read. It's also strangely terrifying. Stuever's dreamy style can get a little too flowery at times but mostly it's on the money, and I found myself consistently amazed that there's still an audience for weird, almost defiantly quirky stuff like this in the world of large-scale print journalism.

[Jamie]

Flipped through a copy of this in a used bookstore, was struck by the way this guy uses a wild, loopy writing style to extract beautiful, poignant, funny moments from subjects that could easily be written off as kitsch.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book a while back, but it was when my stacks were flying in, so I put it aside, not even knowing if I would finish it. It's just a book of various articles written by this guy around the US. Not really too high on my interest level. But then I read the same authors book about Christmas (see TINSEL review a few entries back, same guy) and I really liked it, so I made a point to read this book before it was due back. And I enjoyed it. Not as much as the Christmas book, but I do like me short stories sometimes. Especially if they aren't really up my ally. This book was about middle America, the America we don't see on a normal basis. I can't even name one story. They all focused on people in different situations. Mostly hard ones. I don't know, I guess I would pick up stuff from this author again. We'll see. I am glad I read this one though.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's only fitting that I finally begin to fill my bookshelf with this book. It has made me a Hank Stuever lover. I'm a Hank freak, in fact. He's a journalist who makes writing seem way too easy. It's a great book for anyone, but especially for any journalist who wants to see how an expert does it, and does it well. He doesn't use flowery writing - no need for a high priestess in any of his stories. (inside joke.) He's definitely in my top 5 of journalists/writers. Now, I make a point of reading any story I can by him. (He's a features writer for The Washington Post.)

[Nette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved his new book, "Tinsel," which is about Christmas in modern America; I loved this one even more. He writes smart, funny, dark essays about skating rinks, cheap funeral parlors, the evolution of the white molded plastic chair, waterbeds, and the differences between K-Mart, Walmart, and Target; he also writes about the Oklahoma City bombing and the space shuttle explosion, and there's a piece about September 11 that will rip your heart out. The articles are between eight and 12 years old, but don't seem dated at all.

[Craven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stuever takes stuff that is the overlooked, everyday and mundane and turns it into poignant critiques of modern life and America. For instance who would of thought that essays on plastic deck chairs. Adult night at a lonely roller rink or the KOA campground would even be remotely interesting, let alone fascinating. His view on his subject matter is sympathetic, humane and warm, yet never sentimental.
He does an essay on the wedding of a boring, suburban couple, where he follows them around from the bachelor party to the wedding night is illuminating and kind of sad. It's full of interviews of the engaged and their families starting with how they met and as it unfolds you find yourself thinking, "they're doomed."
He does stories on everything from people who dress up like storm troopers and hang out at the mall, a discount funeral home in a strip mall to robot dogs and the Oklahoma bombing. Stuever has a lot of heart. And to think, from a the Style staff Writer for the Washington Post. Who knew?

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of the books I got from my trip to Powell's in Portland. It's a collection of essays on Americana. The standouts include: a trip to Wilmington to check in on his credit card issuer; a profile of a budget mortician; Gary Coleman's run for governor of California; and a short piece on the sofa fixer - the guy who takes apart sofas so you can squeeze them into your walk-up apartment. I'm a sucker for books like these - I've taken this book out of the library many times but never read the darn thing. Three days without tv in the Cascades did the trick!

[David Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Self-storage facilities, "kampgrounds" and roller rinks are a few of the places in the American Elsewhere where Stuever, a nationally known newspaper reporter, stops for another closely observed feature. He makes time for white plastic patio chairs, the creator of Josie and the Pussycats and the longtime stars of "Jesus Christ Superstar" too. In the collection's epic, he follows an ordinary couple through their wedding, pace by pace.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of articles written by a journalist on everyday America and Americans, including a few significant events from the past few years. Some articles were more interesting than others, but overall, I found most of the articles pretty average.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanna be this guy. He gets to just hang out in the world (roller rinks, funeral homes, etc.) and write awesome sentences about what he sees and what he does. Some of these essays are a tad long and self-absorbed, but are mostly winners.

[Justus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely essays on life outside of downtown. Its not condescending (but maybe its only because I'm in a similar demographic). He doesn't blindly celebrate suburban america, but he does draw out the stories and uniqueness of this modern landscape. A great collection of heartfelt essays.

[Rachael Kenney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more than I expected and plan to pass it along to a few people. The stories were varied and engaging. I especially liked the chapters on KOA and funeral homes. Stuever makes me want to go be a journalist.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but I expected it to be much better. I was looking for a book version of "This American Life" but I now know the original radio show is the only way to go.

[Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

makes you want to take a roadtrip to some dumpy american city, just cuz.

[Margaret McCamant]

This is quite amusing, and would probably resonate better if I were the age of the author--he describes himself as "post-boomer"--instead of 20 years older.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like some of the pieces in this. A little dated now.

[Mary K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting essays, some I skipped. Average stuff

[MICHAEL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes expectations are cruel. Having loved Tinsel, I eagerly awaited the chance to read this offering by Stuever. Unfortunately, it is a collection of pieces (some quite amazing, others, meh) without a through plot that I could find. In fact, for a good deal of the first third I was seriously contemplating putting it down, and that is something I just never do. And, glad I am, because the back third was amazing. I won't spend the energy to understand why, but, my warning to all is, not a coherent social commentary (like Tinsel) but, if you want the meat it is in the later sections. And several (the funeral business, Miss America/9-11, and the two disaster pieces, OKCity and Columbia) are very good and the kamping piece is also worthy of careful reading.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very clever essays about life in modern America. I really enjoyed the first few in the series, but the author does seem to settle into a bit of a predictable rhythm, and the stories started to blur into one another. He also has a fascination with Star Wars and sci-fi that I don't quite share, so some of the pieces didn't really resonate with me. Overall, worth a read.

[Patricia Burgess · Rating 3 out of 5]

American journalist, essays of travels around the country, to visit and meet with ordinary, everyday people and at ordinary places, e.g., big box stores, parking lots, Wonder Women comic writer, people storing stuff in storage units, wedding preparations, to find and write about the mundane, which ultimately are rich and full stories of America. Good tool for writing examples.

[A.]

Funny!

[Paul Gramling · Rating 5 out of 5]

a sort of nostalgia for an america that oftentimes goes unnoticed

[Tito Quiling, Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the initial skimming, I thought this would be quite a dragging read but it turned out to be a fast one because of the brevity of the chapters. And by "Elsewhere", Stuever manages to look into the lives of the people often overlooked because of their standard characteristic, which for the average reader, falls under the grey area of the rest of the world. Ranging from characters trying to spend an idle hour, to the melee found in supermarkets, pageants as folk rituals, domestic terrorism, and even a bit of politics for the easily-distracted audience, the author delivers a fairly solid series of non-fiction pieces, and for some, it may reflect their own story as they try to go through life Elsewhere.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is mine. It came out 20 years ago this month from Henry Holt & Co. It contains stories and essays I wrote for three different newspapers (the Albuquerque Tribune, the Austin American-Statesman and The Washington Post) between the ages of 23 and 34 in the 1990s and early 2000s -- the start of my journalism career.

A lot about the above paragraph seems impossible now: that I was ever that young, that I was given the freedom and encouragement to write deeply, bravely and constantly by the editors and colleagues I was so very lucky to work with. Even stranger is that an editor in New York (the much missed George Hodgman, who died in 2019) saw something in my work that cohered, that was special, and wanted to collect it in a book. It was a thrilling but also scary experience for me, to put these stories back out there in a new way, to subject them to far harsher judgment.

To observe its anniversary, I recently looked through "Off Ramp" again. (Fact: I desperately wanted to title it either "Unassigned Lands" or "Invisible Airplane" but was overruled.) I've re-read big chunks of it. As the years go by, it has acquired the feel of something from another era, long ago (pre-2000, pre-reality TV, pre-human spiral), before "eras" came and went with the breeze. The American Elsewhere looks and feels the same, once you're out driving around in it (or living in it) but it is different now. The combative undercurrent has surfaced and won't let go. It was in a way present in these pieces from the start, perhaps in shadow form.

I'm fascinated by the young man who wrote all this. Goddamn, he _worked._ He was brimming with anxiety and worry and doubt, but he also had story ideas all day long, every day, and he wrote fearlessly, relentlessly. Even when people were unkind (and occasionally homophobic), this Hank Stuever had reserves of confidence and only wanted to get everything right and readable, to turn the banal into the beautiful. I sometimes think the current generation would FAINT if they saw how many hours he put into these pieces. He had zero work-life balance, but he didn't notice, because it was all an adventure, in the service of deadlines and keeping the newspaper full and interesting. He could listen to and observe people for hours on end because he didn't have the whole internet in his pocket. These stories were all baked from scratch.

One more thing about him, which informed just about everything in this book: He was lonely. He had the heart and he had the time.

I'm feeling like he needs 5 stars. You can disagree.