This book opens as fireworks explode and a band plays in an American city. Don Watson is there, making some comments about America with an Australian's eye for the details that might escape the natives. Such as the fact that the crowd is entirely white - the others in the population are busy elsewhere. Save for a man picking up the refuse after the fireworks had ended and the band packed up.This was my second reading of the book. Well, the first where I sat down and read it cover to cover - the previous occasion was on December when I drove the awesome (and paraplegic) world traveller Ken Haley down to Melbourne, and he read it to me as we cruised down the Hume Freeway. Some sections of this copy have Ken's proofreading marks - he has an eagle eye for detail!This time, I read the location - the grassy field in front of the Kansas City Amtrak station - and I realised that this was one place in the world where I'd been. and Ken had not. Ken has climbed the leaning tower of Pisa on his buttocks, gazed out on antelopes in Namibia, and taken a ferry to the Faeroes, but he's a virgin in KC.It was last year on Anzac Day (or dawn in Auckland anyway, it was the previous day in America) and Discoverylover and I found ourselves at the Kansas City World War One memorial. A grand affair, it had columns and ramparts and pools and plaques. And a grassy slope stretching down to the railway station. We browsed through the museum gift shop, not having time to look at the museum itself, and bought a few trinkets. The big Kansas City mug lost its handle in transit and new holds the family toothbrushes, so I am reminded of the day on a daily basis.I like KC. And Des Moines where we spent that night, wrangling over the pronunciation until we sought a local who could tell us whether it was pronounced in the French manner or not. "What's the name of this place?" we asked and she replied, slowly saying, "Buuuuurrr gerrrrr Kingggggg."And San Francisco and Santa Monica where Route 66 ends and Chicago where it begins, and I even got caught up in the same anti-choice rally through Washington DC that Watson mentions. Same massive throng of people, different year. But they all seemed to know each other. It was a continuing celebration, and if they ever achieve their aim, they will be disappointed to miss their annual get-together.There are many places and things in America to love. The Mojave. The inspiring words of Lincoln and Jefferson, who founded the world's first modern democracy in a time when every other nation had a monarch. Jefferson founded it, Lincoln ensured that it endured. The museums on the Mall. The manners, the food, the sense of history, the mighty highways.And there are the other things. The homeless people sleeping in the snow. The huge gap between rich and poor. The immense machinery devoted to keeping people locked up. The ranting of fundamentalist preachers. The lack of any safety net to help people when they get into trouble. The cheerful corruption as the legislatures draw and redraw the electoral boundaries and refine the suffrage laws to diminish those who might vote against them.We visited New Orleans, a year or two after the cyclone, and got a hug from the lovely black lady at "A Diner Named Desire" on Bourbon Street. The food, the fun, the atmosphere there was exhilarating. The next day, we headed east, past a mighty wasteland of undead - or undrowned - suburbs.Don Watson looks at America with a cynical eye. He takes a few words, a sign, a blast on the radio, mingles them with the passing landscape, and travels through modern America. I loved Ken for reading this book, and I loved Don for writing it. He says things that need to be said. He says them in a way that is lyrical, pointed, entertaining and insightful. He looks at the land with a kindness that escapes Bill Bryson, but he doesn't hold back.It's odd, but the Americans I've met have all been the most loving and loveable people. I wonder how on earth these gentle creatures ever managed to set up a state where so many are slaves in all but name. A mother is jailed for falsifying her address so that her child may attend a decent school. A teenager is sent away for years in prison for some trivial possession of marijuana - and is then denied the vote when he is released after his best years are gone in pointless boredom and senseless violence.America, Land of the Free?This book is the companion to all the guidebooks that describe Disneyland or Fall in Vermont. It is necessary reading for the tourist who wants to take it all in, not just the scenery. I read this while visiting Australia from the US. Guess I was missing my adopted home. It was really only ok (two stars feels little harsh, but oh well). The blurb's comparison to Tocqueville by some excited reviewer is outrageous. Watson largely maintains a tone of jaded cynicism about US cultural politics and excoriates some easy targets (yes, gun advocates and religious fanatics are wacky; how terrible was the response to Katrina??). But he also clearly thought HR Clinton had the 2008 election sown up, making only one passing reference to the "presidential hopeful" Barack Obama (the scare quotes are his). Go for his earlier book "Death Sentence: The Demise of Public Language", was fantastic - really worth reading.
What do You think about American Journeys (2008)?
3.5 stars. Musings on America, great for getting me in the mood for travelling there soon.
—pulivarthi
Currently reading it to Helen in bed every night
—roro
