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A Hoosier Holiday
"Though far from the author's usual musings, this is actually a forerunner to the American road novel and very well could have been one of the inspirations for Jack Kerouac . . . this is a fine addition to public and academic libraries." ― Library Journal
"Theodore Dreiser, road warrior . . . Dreiser's account of his homecoming will touch a familiar and responsive chord in anyone who has undertaken one. . . . In that, as in so much else in this book, as in the great body of all his work, Dreiser in his earnest, heartfelt, clumsy way speaks to the universal experience." ―Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Because [the book] provides a portrait of the artist as a young man and describes the nation as a mosaic of individual cultures, Dreiser's journey offers several different lessons. Part travelogue, part autobiography, part collection of essays, A Hoosier Holiday lays out the landscape of a nation that ceased to exist once the highway unfurled across the map." ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)
By 1914, Theodore Dreiser was a successful writer living in New York. He had not been back to his home state in over 20 years. When his friend Franklin Booth approached him with the idea of driving from New York to Indiana, Dreiser's response to Booth was "All my life I've been thinking of making a return trip to Indiana and writing a book about it." Along the route, Dreiser recorded his impressions of the people and land in words while his traveling companion sketched some of these scenes. In this reflective tale, Dreiser and Booth cross four states to arrive at Indiana and the sites and memories of Dreiser's early life in Terre Haute, Sullivan, Evansville, Warsaw, and his one year at Indiana University.
"Theodore Dreiser, road warrior . . . Dreiser's account of his homecoming will touch a familiar and responsive chord in anyone who has undertaken one. . . . In that, as in so much else in this book, as in the great body of all his work, Dreiser in his earnest, heartfelt, clumsy way speaks to the universal experience." ―Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Because [the book] provides a portrait of the artist as a young man and describes the nation as a mosaic of individual cultures, Dreiser's journey offers several different lessons. Part travelogue, part autobiography, part collection of essays, A Hoosier Holiday lays out the landscape of a nation that ceased to exist once the highway unfurled across the map." ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)
By 1914, Theodore Dreiser was a successful writer living in New York. He had not been back to his home state in over 20 years. When his friend Franklin Booth approached him with the idea of driving from New York to Indiana, Dreiser's response to Booth was "All my life I've been thinking of making a return trip to Indiana and writing a book about it." Along the route, Dreiser recorded his impressions of the people and land in words while his traveling companion sketched some of these scenes. In this reflective tale, Dreiser and Booth cross four states to arrive at Indiana and the sites and memories of Dreiser's early life in Terre Haute, Sullivan, Evansville, Warsaw, and his one year at Indiana University.
560 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1916
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About the author
Theodore Dreiser
468 books924 followersNaturalistic novels of American writer and editor Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser portray life as a struggle against ungovernable forces. Value of his portrayed characters lies in their persistence against all obstacles, not their moral code, and literary situations more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency; this American novelist and journalist so pioneered the naturalist school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 29, 2016
I spent most of the summer reading this book and finished it with regret just a few days into fall. I haven't so enjoyed a book in a long time!
Better known for his great novels such as An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie and The Financier trilogy, Theodore Dreiser also wrote a number of autobiographical works and early travelogues that are wonderful reads, if unfortunately little read today. In the past, I enjoyed reading Dawn and A Traveler at Forty. I had never heard of "A Hoosier Holiday" until I came across an old hardcover book with a faded cover, sad and neglected looking at the Osterhout Public Library annual used book sale this last June. I paged through it and found the 1916 first edition had been acquired by the library on June 27, 1917 and was later tucked away in a sub-basement, having been checked out only a few times in the last 99 years until finally it was removed from the collection and sold this year. It is sad so few people read this book or know if it today, because it is a wonderful read.
It is hard to imagine today, but in 1915, a long car ride across several states was an adventure. There were no interstates, maps were poor, and roads ranged in quality from mud to macadam. Dreiser's book recounts his 2000 mile journey across 5 states in a primitive car with his friend and driver. Along the way he revisits hometowns of his youth and muses on his life.
I was particularly interested to find out he traveled through my Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania area at the peak of its anthracite coal-mining boom and commented very favorably on the city. I can still see vestiges of his descriptions haunting the remains of some of the areas of Wilkes-Barre he describes.
His description of America in 1915 is something no historian of today could ever write, yet his musings on such things as concerns over too many immigrants, we can relate to even today. Truly as Santayana remarked, history repeats.
While Dreiser's work is primarily a descriptive travelogue, he mixes in personal musings on his feelings about revisiting his homes of youth and presents autobiographical sketches of his past.
Given the book's writing in 1915, there are a few paragraphs and phrases depicting African-Americans and other minorities we may take offense at today but the value is this is how people were treated and thought about in 1915 and we need to remember those mistakes to not repeat them today.
This book was a wonderful read, and I am sorry that it is not more known or available to readers today. If you can find a copy and enjoy Dreiser's writing style, want to learn a little more about him, and learn about America 100 years ago, you won't find a better book. Highly recommended!
Better known for his great novels such as An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie and The Financier trilogy, Theodore Dreiser also wrote a number of autobiographical works and early travelogues that are wonderful reads, if unfortunately little read today. In the past, I enjoyed reading Dawn and A Traveler at Forty. I had never heard of "A Hoosier Holiday" until I came across an old hardcover book with a faded cover, sad and neglected looking at the Osterhout Public Library annual used book sale this last June. I paged through it and found the 1916 first edition had been acquired by the library on June 27, 1917 and was later tucked away in a sub-basement, having been checked out only a few times in the last 99 years until finally it was removed from the collection and sold this year. It is sad so few people read this book or know if it today, because it is a wonderful read.
It is hard to imagine today, but in 1915, a long car ride across several states was an adventure. There were no interstates, maps were poor, and roads ranged in quality from mud to macadam. Dreiser's book recounts his 2000 mile journey across 5 states in a primitive car with his friend and driver. Along the way he revisits hometowns of his youth and muses on his life.
I was particularly interested to find out he traveled through my Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania area at the peak of its anthracite coal-mining boom and commented very favorably on the city. I can still see vestiges of his descriptions haunting the remains of some of the areas of Wilkes-Barre he describes.
His description of America in 1915 is something no historian of today could ever write, yet his musings on such things as concerns over too many immigrants, we can relate to even today. Truly as Santayana remarked, history repeats.
While Dreiser's work is primarily a descriptive travelogue, he mixes in personal musings on his feelings about revisiting his homes of youth and presents autobiographical sketches of his past.
Given the book's writing in 1915, there are a few paragraphs and phrases depicting African-Americans and other minorities we may take offense at today but the value is this is how people were treated and thought about in 1915 and we need to remember those mistakes to not repeat them today.
This book was a wonderful read, and I am sorry that it is not more known or available to readers today. If you can find a copy and enjoy Dreiser's writing style, want to learn a little more about him, and learn about America 100 years ago, you won't find a better book. Highly recommended!
October 22, 2022
Penned in 1914 this work covers in detail Dreiser's road trip from New York through Pennsylvania and Ohio back to his childhood homes in Indiana. It is lengthy at 400 pages and reminds me of Travels with Charley written by Steinbeck some 50 years later.
Dreiser's insights are profound and nostalgic. He was born a hundred years prior but like myself in a small town. I have had many of the same sentiments towards small town life that Dreiser expresses so eloquently in this book. His tone can be lofty but he is a realist. He also opines on the many new innovations in the world since he was born and includes roller skates and ice cream sodas right up there with automobiles.
The only reason this book is not five stars is that there is a single page of racist views where he makes fun of a waiter's vernacular. This is when Dreiser arrives in the southern like town of Evansville. It was not surprising to me because of the deeply racist era but it was a little jarring.
4 stars
Dreiser's insights are profound and nostalgic. He was born a hundred years prior but like myself in a small town. I have had many of the same sentiments towards small town life that Dreiser expresses so eloquently in this book. His tone can be lofty but he is a realist. He also opines on the many new innovations in the world since he was born and includes roller skates and ice cream sodas right up there with automobiles.
The only reason this book is not five stars is that there is a single page of racist views where he makes fun of a waiter's vernacular. This is when Dreiser arrives in the southern like town of Evansville. It was not surprising to me because of the deeply racist era but it was a little jarring.
4 stars
September 10, 2015
I give this book five stars as a beautifully written travelogue of a 1915 automobile trip (2,000 miles) from New York City to Indiana, including a visit to several Indiana towns (Warsaw, Carmel, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Sullivan, Vincennes, Evansville, Bloomington, as well as others along the way). Dreiser was visiting for the first time in over 25 years some of the towns where he had lived as a child (Terre Haute, Sullivan, Vincennes, Evansville, and Warsaw) in the 1870's and 1880's. Dreiser had also spent one year as a college student at Indiana University in Bloomington.
I don't agree with Dreiser's worldview or his antagonism toward organized religion, as represented in this book. Dreiser was raised in a strict Roman Catholic family and had attended Roman Catholic schools for most of his early schooling, but he had abandoned religious belief early in his adult life. I don't know that I'd say he was an atheist, probably more of an agnostic.
The beauty of this book is not so much in Dreiser's description about life or people in general, as much as it is about the life and people he encountered in particular. A time capsule into the people and places and life of 100 years ago. I felt like I was visiting the towns and riding in the automobile with him.
Dreiser was accompanied on the trip by well-known illustrator Franklin Booth (of Carmel, Indiana), whose sketches of the trip are included in the book. There is a dialogue between Dreiser and Booth in the chapter "Hail, Indiana", in which Booth eloquently describes what it is that makes Indiana so beautiful and unique.
I don't agree with Dreiser's worldview or his antagonism toward organized religion, as represented in this book. Dreiser was raised in a strict Roman Catholic family and had attended Roman Catholic schools for most of his early schooling, but he had abandoned religious belief early in his adult life. I don't know that I'd say he was an atheist, probably more of an agnostic.
The beauty of this book is not so much in Dreiser's description about life or people in general, as much as it is about the life and people he encountered in particular. A time capsule into the people and places and life of 100 years ago. I felt like I was visiting the towns and riding in the automobile with him.
Dreiser was accompanied on the trip by well-known illustrator Franklin Booth (of Carmel, Indiana), whose sketches of the trip are included in the book. There is a dialogue between Dreiser and Booth in the chapter "Hail, Indiana", in which Booth eloquently describes what it is that makes Indiana so beautiful and unique.
August 14, 2010
It takes a patient reader to understand Indiana native Theodore Dreiser. I would recommend the book to an enthusiast of the "road novel." Most people think of Jack Kerouac, but A Hoosier Holiday pre-dated "On the Road" by at least 40 years.
March 21, 2016
Very interesting.
July 14, 2015
A Hoosier Holiday provides such insight into taking to the road in the early days of the automobile. I enjoyed the meandering story and will never again take for granted driving coast to coast without any breakdowns.
May 20, 2025
Dreiser is my favorite author so I was sure I would enjoy this book. It did not disappoint. I loved the descriptions of the towns and his memories that were often faded but others very vivid. I was sorry to see he viewed his Catholic school education as such a horror for him. I feel an affinity to him and always have. If you are a fan of Dreiser I encourage you to read this to gain insight into the man.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews