Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier

by Hampton Sides

Harley-Davidson bikers • Grand Canyon river rats • Mormon archaeologists • Spelling bee prodigies • For more than fifteen years, the bestselling, award-winning author of Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers has traveled widely across the continent exploring the America that lurks just behind the scrim of our mainstream culture. This sparkling mosaic of our country, in all its wild and poignant charm, “may be the best road trip you’ll ever take—full of strange vision, hilarious detours, and sudden beauty in unlikely places” (The New Yorker). Reporting for Outside, The New Yorker, and NPR, among other national media, the award-winning journalist has established a reputation not only as a wry observer of the contemporary American scene but also as one of our more inventive and versatile practitioners of narrative non-fiction. In these two dozen pieces, collected here for the first time, Sides gives us a fresh, alluring, and at times startling America brimming with fascinating subcultures and bizarre characters who could live nowhere else. Following Sides, we crash the redwood retreat of an apparent cabal of fabulously powerful military-industrialists, drop in on the Indy 500 of bass fishing, and join a giant techno-rave at the lip of the Grand Canyon. We meet a diverse gallery of American visionaries— from the impossibly perky founder of Tupperware to Indian radical Russell Means to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. We retrace the route of the historic Bataan Death March with veterans from Sides’ acclaimed WWII epic, Ghost Soldiers. Sides also examines the nation that has emerged from the ashes of September 11, recounting the harrowing journeys of three World Trade Center survivors and deciding at the last possible minute not to "embed" on the Iraqi front-lines with the U.S. Marines.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Essays, Americana, Cultural, American History

466 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 13, 2004

Reviews

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier is a wonderful anthology of selected articles written by Hampton Sides, noted historian and best-selling author, over the years reporting for the likes of Outside, The New Yorker, and National Public Radio. Hampton Sides has organized these non-fiction narratives into sections entitled American Originals; American Edens; American Rides; Americans By Birth, Southern by the Grace of . . . ; Americans Abroad; and American Obsessions. It is in this context that one can see a wide variation in the contemporary American landscape and the diverse and sometimes bizarre people that make up America from the skateboarding legend Tony Hawk to the radical Russell Means as part of the Native American Movement to a bass fishing tournament. There are powerful stories about veterans of World War II, including a moving piece on the Bataan Death March as well as the war in Iraq. One of the most moving pieces was the account of the events on September 11, 2001 as related by those who witnessed the devastation occurring at The World Trade Center and its aftermath.

I was struck by Hampton Sides Introduction where he struggles to define what it is that makes America the vast and diverse country that it is. In 2004, he decided to organize his work into an anthology. And over the course of fifteen years the narratives were as random as his many magazine assignments but the varied themes he has captured enables us to have a wider grasp of this United States of America and to give us hope for the future.

Since New Mexico is very dear to me, one of my favorite narratives in this anthology was the writing about Santa Fe and home to the author. I will end with Hampton Sides beautifully expressed thoughts on Santa Fe:

"So what is Santa Fe, then? Historically, it's always been and end-of-the-line kind of place: the end of the Camino Real, the end of the Santa Fe Trail, the northern end of the desert, the western end of the prairie, the southern end of the Rockies. People who gravitate to Santa Fe--artists, chaos theorists, photographers, chefs and psychics--often tend to be the sort of people who could live almost anywhere but chose to live here because they've found inspiration, or solace, or even amusement in looking at the United States of America from what seems like a long way away. For living here does at times feel like living on an island surrounded not by the seas but by vast oceans of land. We're in America, but somehow separate from it. We're in our own little cyst, a dusty enclave of semi-expats who thrive on living at the end of line."

"The Santa Fe style isn't so much an architecture, I now realize, as an anti-architecture, an unobtrusiveness of construction that gives the whole Sangre de Cristo mountain landscape--and what a landscape!--first billing."

[Karen Germain · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Friend Nicole passed this book my way and it was absolutely fantastic. Hampton Side’s “Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier” is comprised of thirty chapters, each reflecting on a different American subculture or perspective. The stories each vary drastically in tone, some taking more of a travel writer feel and some hardcore journalism.

As with all collections, some pieces are bound to be more interesting than others, but I really don’t think that there was a low point in this book. The book has several highlights. In particular, I enjoyed “Waiting for Liddy”, “Sisters of the Bowl” and “This is Not the Place.” A majority of the chapters really made me envious of Sides and it made me want to sell everything, buy an airstream trailer and hit the road. America is fascinating!

The best piece was “Points of Impact” which was the perspective of three World Trade Center survivors. It was completely affecting and absorbing. I can’t imagine that anyone would be able to read that chapter with a dry eye and without feeling completely lucky.

I can’t praise this book enough and look forward to reading more of Hampton Sides.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh.

A bit disjointed at times. The book has no real driving narrative and the stories often only tangentially relate to Americans and their “americana” — a time capsule from a different era, for sure.

[Fred Forbes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must have been in the mood for essays after Bryson's book about the summer of '27 in America so this one was a nice continuation. A lot of different, interesting topics from "Airstreaming" retirees, to cavers to bass fishing. But probably the most powerful writing is on the experience of the those at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Pretty tough to come away from those stories with dry eyes.

[Chuck Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I had read all of Hampton Sides books. Blood and Thunder, Ghost soldiers among my all time favorites. After reading the latest , The Wide Wide Sea,
I was perusing his list of previous books and saw this little nugget. It’s a collection of previously published magazine articles. It’s very Jon Ronsonesque, although, to be sure, no one can equal Jon Ronson.
Thirty pieces; each one a unique part of Americana.
From visits to Tony Hawk and Russel Means to remembrances of Bataan death march survivors and 9-11 world trades center survivors.
A very interesting and informative read.

[Ken Heard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago when I was a newspaper reporter and gave it four stars, perhaps because I was more used to the triage journalism I did as a bureau reporter in Northeast Arkansas in cranking out fast copy than writing 5,000 word pieces that ran a month later.

Flash forward 15-some years. I was laid off from that newspaper and am writing for magazines on a freelance basis. I reread Hampton Sides' collection and found them amazing. Maybe it's because I realize the work it takes in hacking out a massive article

Sides does a wonderful job of taking an issue and then showing its history. We called it the Christian Science Monitor Method of writing when I was in news, although many papers did this. You take an issue and lead with a person and then weave in history, culture and backstory. He did this with a look at the Church of God convention in Memphis in which he opens with a frenetic service and then provides the history of the church. He did the same with the idea that Mormonism began in Illinois before moving to Salt Lake City. Claims that scrolls could be found first in Missouri and then in Mexico went unfounded, but Sides went along searches and wrote well about them.

He also has two amazing stories about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centers. In the first in that section about the terroristic attack, he finds survivors and tells their harrowing tales. It's dated; the event happened well over 20 years ago, but I read new things. Later, he writes of the first casualty in the Gulf War. Again, it's a beautiful piece with excellent reporting and research.

There's also a really long article of a murder mystery in Mississippi, a look at dune buggy fans in California, a treacherous marathon in the Sahara Desert, a feature on skateboarder Tony Hawk (albeit dated) and others.

I had planned to read this and then donate it to a book store in an attempt to begin clearing out my scores of books at home. Instead, after reading this again, it's found a permanent home in my book shelves.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

He is my favorite writer of nonfiction. These essays cover a lot of ground and a lot of the world. He writes about fascinating people and places.

[Anthony Whitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book may be dated but the author is a master at capturing the essence of a good story. I found that a little historical perspective actually added to my enjoyment of the read.

[Ryan H · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. While some were interesting stories the book didn't really seem to have a theme - just one American story to the next.

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Americana by Hampton Sides is easy to read and interesting. The volume is composed of 30 short, non-fiction, people pieces. Each article offers a snippet of the kaleidoscope of the American character. Sides has a talent at choosing intriguing topics. Some of the topics are satirical, but, not with malice. Sides seems to attempt to bring understanding to each of the pieces by including lots of interesting facts. One piece, for example, on spelling bees and modern spelling contests includes a whole host of information on why the English language presents such spelling difficulties, and why English English and American English have evolved differently.

Some of the topics are of a more realistic bent. One, on the first American death in the second Iraq war and another portraying the impact of the 9/11 - Twin Towers collapse on several individuals are some of the best prose pieces I have read. For just plain writing fun and humor, two of my favorite pieces characterize the annual "Hog" motorcycle conflagration at Sturgis, South Dakota; and Biosphere 2 in Arizona, at the two-year exit. Taken in aggregate these diverse glimpses of America portray the individualism of America. Sides choses two words to integrate these individual stories of American character: confidence and openness.

Read this book. I think you will enjoy it.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthologies aren't the type of books that I knowingly choose to read. i didn't realize this book was an anthology when i bought it; i might not have bought it had i known it. anyway, when i discovered this was a book of short stories, i wasn't thrilled. well, the book was good. it was in the travel section at half price books, but it shouldn't have been. Maybe the sociology section would have been more appropriate for it.

This author wrote interesting non-fiction stories about interesting topics, ranging from the big Harley rally in Sturgis to a story about a cave rescue specialist. The topics were interesting, and the stories were written in a style that kept me entertained. This was a good book that i would recommend to most people.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction to this book is epic, eagle spreading his wings, firecrackers exploding over Fort McHenry. This introduction made me proud to be an American.

And then you descend into the first essay, a sort of biography of Tony Hawk, American skateboarder. And frankly, it is just not that interesting. Maybe the other essays match the soaring rhetoric of the introduction, but, after slogging through much of the Tony Hawk essay, I was just not willing to find it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was incredibly interesting. The anthology style means you get a brief glimpse at all kinds of different people and events, tons of which I wouldn't have read about otherwise.

I would love to read a biography of Hampton Sides. He has definitely lived an interesting life.

[Eric Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's not to like? The writing is amazing, the subjects diverse and interesting. My only complaint is that these aren't original pieces, but previously published articles from over a decade.

[Nate]

Hampton Sides is a journalist and historian, but what he really is is a storyteller. In all of his books, you can feel his excitement at telling a good story, at building a narrative from fascinating tidbits about real people and real events. He delights in language and his stories come alive the page. So it goes with this book, which collects articles he wrote for various magazines from the late 80s to the early 2000s. Taken together, these stories present some picture of America during this era. The America Sides presents is bizarre, beautiful, dark, obsessive, hilarious, independent, complex, contradictory, and one-of-a-kind.

Reading these stories back-to-back, their individual impact is perhaps lost a bit. In the future, I will probably read a story at random here and there instead of reading the book cover-to-cover again. It’s an anthology after all. But I will say that every story was interesting to me. Even if it’s a topic I had no awareness of, Sides made it seem like the most interesting thing. For instance, I have close to zero interest in bass fishing, but loved reading about the zen fisherman’s routine during the Bassmasters Classic. And because these are journalistic pieces written in first person, Sides is essentially a character in the book; guide, troubadour, curiosity hound. I love that.

Most stories are relatively lighthearted features or profiles, but some are quite dark and serious. Two of these are the longest stories in the book, and are full-on masterpieces: “A Murder in Falkner,” about a small-town Mississippi killing, and “Points of Impact,” which details the experiences of four 9/11 survivors. Phenomenal writing, riveting stories.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the stories were interesting but lacked an emotional/personal element, which made the book overall feel like a disconnected collection of small profiles of interesting but independent people. Perhaps that was the sole goal, but many other collections I've read like this have a finer point that individual pieces help illustrate. To this point, it does accomplish showing in vivid detail the sheer size and multitudes of life across the United States.

I was interested because the book was published in 2004 before many similar books popped up post-2016, but everything just felt slightly dated. There were some parallels to life today, but it was fascinating to see how much the world has changed in less than 20 years in our lifetimes.

Favorite stories were: "The Gay Eminence," "And the Bureaucrats Said, Let There Be High Water," and "This Is Not the Place." "Baked" was a fun read about an ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert and what propels people to run it, and "Points of Impact" was an incredibly well-written, well-weaved, and powerful narrative about 9/11. It left me speechless.

"At Home in a Fake Place" was also a fun read since I bought this book in Santa Fe and enjoyed many of the elements of the city that were mentioned in the story. Though many stories feel forgettable, I enjoyed enough about this (and it was a perfect style for a road trip book) for a 3/5.

[Sarah Ewald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this book. I had picked this up as a paperback, intrigued by the picture of the Airstream trailer on the cover. It was an older book, and it looked as though it had been in a wet basement, but none the less, I started reading. These are stories written by Hampton Sides for various magazines over the years, and my book had a print date of 2004. Most are short enough for even the 'time crunched.' Some of the stories are dated, but all enjoyable. I especially liked the one on the afore-mentioned Airstream phenomenon, as well as the ones on the Tupperware ladies, the cult of G. Gordon Liddy, the event in S. Dakota that brings together Harley riders, and the arrogance of stereophiles. The most impressive were the last for chapters under the section of America, Post 9/11. These 4 dealt with the world as it is after 9/11: the survivors of the Twin Tower attack, the reporters who embedded in the Iraq war, and most chilling the story of Second Lt. Shane Childers, one of the first casualties of the war in the middle east. You will not forget that one.

[Abraham Mathew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating collection of stories that capture the spirit of America very well. I've heard of a lot of these subcultures like the Sturgis rally, the Iditarod race, Tupperware sales, the National Spelling Bee, bass fishing, Tony Hawk and skateboarding… but this book took me behind the scenes and gave me an insiders look. The stories (all non fiction) are not very long but leave you with a deeper appreciation of these subcultures. There was a lot I did not know. How did I not know about the Bohemian Club?? It is so fascinating that such a secretive 17-day retreat in the California redwoods is where a lot of the power brokering happens. There were also harrowing accounts of 911 survivors reliving their experiences, as well as war stories from Bataan (WWII), the Gulf War and Iraq. Hampton Sides has captured many facets of Americana.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I rarely read an anthology, I found this one superb. It's a collection of 30 of author's magazine articles, mostly from the 1980s and 90s. For example, author travels with Mormons in Central America jungles in effort the prove the viability of the Book of Mormon. Results: zero. He embeds with Marines in Kuwait prior to the invasion of Iraq, but then, remembering his wife and three young sons back in the U.S., backs out at the last minute. He skateboards with the legendary Tony Hawk. He attends a Tupperware convention. His continued use of "gauntlet" for running through something rubs me the wrong way. Since a gauntlet is a glove, I cheer whenever I see an author use the more correct "gantlet."

[Sam Dye · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many gems in this book that answer questions that I never thought to ask and some that I had asked but turned out I didn't know the first thing about. There were some that broadened my understanding of topics on which I had a good command. An example of the latter was "This Is Not the Place". I knew the problems with the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon in the Mormon theological pantheon but the way he investigated this subject by an deep study of Thomas Stuart Ferguson brought many facts to light. He even took trip with some Mormons to the area where many expeditions had been made searching (unsuccessfully) for geographical sites that would confirm the Book of Mormon historicity. His discussion of Santa Fe "At Home in a Fake Place" was priceless.

[Dave Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun and interesting collection of reported works and essays. It still feels fresh despite the passage of time and the figures having less cultural currency. Two of the pieces - Points of Impact, about the 9/11 attacks, and First, about the first American fatality in the second Iraq War - are painfully vivid and unsettling, and I wouldn't recommend reading the 9/11 piece while flying on an airplane, as I did. (I had to put it down and finish it when I was back home, but it still shook me up.) Really honest and humorous depictions of both regular Americans and some more well-known figures. I'd be interested in checking out more of Sides' books on history - I thought of him as more of a historian based on his MLK writings.

[Erin Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of article written by the author, this book casts a wide net. The first story is about Tony Hawk, the king of all things skateboarding, and ends with soldiers in the Gulf War. It is all over the place. The articles were all written in the late 90s and early 00s, so there is some age to the them. But, I feel like they hold up. It is interesting to apply knowledge of some historical outcomes to what was not yet known at the time these were written. Some of the stories are more engrossing than others, for sure. I skipped one almost in its entirety, because the topic just didn't interest me. Even if you pick this up and just read one or two articles, you likely will learn something you didn't know.

Listened to audiobook - solid narrator, unabridged, able to listen at 1.5x

[Matt Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this kind of book is not really my thing, I felt that I had to read American because Hampton Sides is my favorite author.

As a collection of articles written from the early 90's to the early 00's, Americana is very different from his other books. Some articles were very enjoyable. In particular:

The Birdman Drops In
The Gay Eminence
Jerusalem on the Mississippi
Crawl Space
A Murder in Falkner
This is Not the Place
Ghosts of Bataan
Point of Impact
First

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the book (and the reason I like Hampton Sides so much): 30 articles, vastly different in subject and tone, all so well written (though not all interesting to me).

[Johnny G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays about the author’s interactions with various interesting people he meets across the country. I was led to believe that he was going on some long sojourn to find the “soul” of America, but it’s not really that at all. Some of these entries are longer than others, but I found that the more moving pieces were about 9-11 and the unsolved murder in Mississippi. I can’t go to five stars, because several of the stories/essays/pieces didn’t hold my interest, including the first one: who cares about Tony Hawk?

[Lexi Moorehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned a lot from this book. At this point it kind of reads as American history since the stories are from the 90s and early 2000s. Some stories left me wondering what was the point of telling this? I sometimes became very bored with the writer’s story-telling style, and some ending were less than satisfying. But overall pretty fun way to learn some unique American history. Some stories were a super interesting insight into niche American cultures and events.

[David Hymas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 Mostly random collection of stories that the author has written over the last 30 years, organized loosely under the idea of them being representative of Americana. I say loosely because there are a couple about Americans abroad and random stories like a lengthy examination of a teenage murder. I’ve read most of the author’s books and love his writing. These stories don’t disappoint(mostly) but they are hit or miss. These stories book reminds me of those Best Writing collections.

[Angela Oneal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author starts this book with an anecdote where he asks a Moroccan friend how he could spot an American. The friend responds, "Confident like you own the world. But open." The book is a series of stories that document American stories- from skate board culture to fundamentalist Christians. Overall, a good read.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This non fiction work did not hold my interest like his Ghost Soldiers did. Written dryly like newspaper articles for human interest stories ("dispatches" is a good subtitle and should have been a warning to me). A fantastic range of subjects though. I wish I could have been pulled into more of the stories he covered.

[Tamika Koehn · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far I have really liked everything I’ve read by Hampton Sides. This book is articles he wrote for different magazines etc. It’s about different aspects of American life- ranging from Tony Hawk to Airstreams to Tupperware and the most heart rending one where he interviews different people who were at the World Trade Centers on 9/11.

[Steve Bera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good author and I like his writing style. This is a book which is a collection of short stories he wrote primarily for Outside Magazine. The most current article is from 2003. A couple of the first articles were off the mark but I really enjoyed the remainder, even though they were dated.