Reviews

A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow': An American Hitchhiking Odyssey by Tim Brookes

sandyd's review

Go to review page

4.0

I love travel books, and this was a good one. The author is an English college professor who lives in Vermont, who decided to re-do his youthful 1973 hitchhiking journey across America in 1999.

He absolutely hated Detroit and its outskirts: "a sight from hell, from a Hieronymus Bosch painting, but a modern Bosch, with no hellish, contorted people, just hellish contorted objects: refinery piping, tanks, high-tension wires. The air was hot and fetid; it smelled like a fume hood....The on-ramp to I-75 was one of the nastiest palces I've hitched in my life. The roadside was littered with bits of fiberglass, a steel flotsam and jetsam of car parts, a syringe, and a plastic tampon applicator. People in huge American cars stared at me as if I were a hunchback."

debnanceatreaderbuzz's review

Go to review page

4.0

Brookes recreates his hitchhiking
adventures from the early 1970's
as he attempts to hitchhike across
America. Recommended.
More...