Blue Highways: A Journey into America

Written by William Least Heat-Moon

Narrated by Joe Barrett

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads.
William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map -- if they get on at all -- only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi."
His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Jan 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781478977476

William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon is a travel writer and historian of English, Irish, and Osage ancestry. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, including cross-country trips by boat.

Reviews for Blue Highways

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author, an English professor who had just lost his job and his wife, decided to drive across the United States and return, as much as possible on the "blue roads" that were the main thoroughfares before the interstate highway system was built. Along the way, he visited many small towns, diners, gas stations and other local businesses where he hoped to find vestiges of the "real America". This is an endlessly fascinating exercise; Steinbeck did it twenty years earlier, with a dog; people are still doing it 30 years later. And it's great fun to read about.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read many travelogues over the years. Some were bad, some were good, some were so good they made me anxious to take a similar journey (and sometimes I did). Of them all, this is the best.

It's William Least Heat Moon's circumnavigation of the United States, all the while avoiding the sterile super-highways usual for that purpose and trying to stay on the blue roads ... the secondary thoroughfares colored blue on road atlases before we all became reliant on GPS.

It's not just that he has a gift for a turn of phrase—a waitress with a "grudge of a face." Nor that he can describe the natural world so well that you can picture it—the Pine Barrens "six hundred fifty thousand acres (equal to Grand Canyon National Park) ... pitch pines and oaks and white cedars ... cranberry bogs and fields of high-bush blueberries opening the woods ... a stream [where] tannins had turned the transparent water the color of cherry cola .. a silence as if civilization had disappeared." Not even that he knows us—Americans—so well: "You might as well ask [the American traveler] to share his toothbrush as his bathroom."

It's all that plus a perfect blend of "This is what I saw" and "This is whom I met." It's a picture of place and people, many of them gone or going now. Colorful, rich, full of stories about how things got the way they are now, the people that embraced the changes and those who resisted them.

And you learn how to rate diners by the number of calendars on wall.

Absolutely read it.

[pnwkatie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book makes me want to drop off the grid, pronto.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was another buddy read with my dad, since we enjoyed PrairyErth so much. William Least Heat-Moon is an excellent writer, and there are so many beautiful turns of phrase and fascinating observations here. I did not enjoy it quite as much as PrairyErth, however. Part of that is just my attachment to the prairie (oh, I lit up when we got to his descriptions of the northern prairie in this book!), but part of it lies in Heat-Moon's attitude toward women, surely colored by the fact that this entire trip was in no small part motivated by the collapse of his relationship.

This sexist feeling isn't everywhere or even a constant theme, but it shows up often enough that it really started to drag on me. There are a couple (at least) of men who, when telling their life stories, spend a lot of time blaming women for their sorry states, and Heat-Moon listens sympathetically. Then when he picks up a young woman hitchhiking, who describes the objectively abusive home life she is fleeing, he argues with her, telling her it couldn't have been all bad, and maintains a disapproving attitude. Then there are the number of times women are described based primarily on their attractiveness, including some random speculation on what one woman (who does not flirt with him in any way) would be like in bed. YES, I GET IT. YOU ARE PROCESSING YOUR FAILED/FAILING RELATIONSHIP, BUT I AM HERE FOR THE DESCRIPTIONS OF AMERICANA, CAN WE NOT MAKE THEM SO ENTANGLED WITH YOUR FEMALE BAGGAGE, PLEASE?

That said, there was so much to love in this book. Scenes that spring to mind are the conversations on racism in the Deep South, the observations on sovereign lands in Northern Arizona, the bit on hang-gliding, the hitchhiking Seventh Day Adventist, the guy who ran a maple syrup operation. All of these tiny little hyper-local ways of life that are mostly inconceivable to people living a few states away. Amazing.

[martialalex92 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

His conversations with people along the way were good and the imagery was nice, it just wore on a bit too long and got to kind of navel-gazing levels of self-obsession about halfway in

[carolfoasia_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A travel memoir through America from 1978-1979. Fascinating read. He even stops in my town of Corvallis, OR (but is obsessed with a slug and says very little about our great town. (He arrived there about the same time I came to live here for college.)

[whitecat82 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an important book to me as a younger adult, first hardcover book I ever purchased. I loved every page, and hope to re-read it one of these days. We follow along on the author's journey around the United States, as he navigates the slower roads, and also discovers so much about himself.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the past few days as I read Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon I have been glued to my computer so that I could use the Google maps to follow along with his journey. In 1978 after seeing his marriage fall apart and then his teaching job disappear, William Least Heat-Moon climbed into his van and set off to explore the byways of America. He tried to avoid all major routes and stick to the secondary roads that are marked by blue on the maps, hence the name of the book.

Setting off on the road with no set destination, just living moment by moment, I was green with envy. I would love to simply pack up and hit the roads for a tour around North America. The author travelled on very little money or comfort items, but managed to explore his country and meet and talk with some extremely interesting people all the while coming to terms with who he was and where he wanted to be. The book is rich in details of the trip. The sights, smells and tastes of America are detailed by this talented observer. By the time he headed for home in Missouri, he had completely circled the country.

As I read the book and checked the maps I was saddened by the changes that have occurred since then. Many of the roads have changed or no longer exist, and the same can be said for many of the small towns. Some have been swallowed up by ever expanding cities and some have just disappeared. It’s been over forty years since Blue Highways was published so at times this book seems more like a testament to days gone by. This became a journey of heart, mind and spirit for the author but he always kept America front and centre as the main character and delivers a wonderful road trip travelogue full of wit, humor and truth.

[etxgardener · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first ready this book back in the 1980's when it was first published. And no, re-reading it almost 40 years later, it still fills me with wonder and makes me was to head on out on the open road.William Least Heat-Moon manages to capture the diversity in both landscape and people of this country as he makes his circular drive around the continental United States. This book is a classic.

[patl_53 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the great "travelling to discover America" stories ever written. Highly recommended to all who have wanderlust, and all who want to discover the true America, though the eyes of a wonderful writer with unwelcome native heritage.

[ffifield-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting read about a road trip around the edges of America.

[kukulaj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A delightful reflective tour around the USA. A series of small town encounters. People, places, history. Least Heat Moon picked places out of the Rand McNally atlas mostly based on peculiar names. He gets to talking with various local folks and shares with us what he learns. I didn't pick up any grand agenda. But he writes well and helps us get to know some places and people off the interstates.

[librarycin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In 1978, William Least Heat-Moon lost his job and his wife. He decided to take a road trip through the entire U.S. He followed the roads less travelled – that is, the “blue highways” on the map, the ones that mostly avoid the big cities. He headed east from where he lived in Missouri, then made a big circle around the outskirts of the country, following the blue highways. In each place, he chatted with the people and learned about the cultures in each part of the country.

It was ok. It wasn’t fast-moving, and with so many different towns and people, it felt a little like short stories (which are not my favourite thing). Like with short stories, some people/places/stories were more interesting to me than others.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book; Moon writes like an angel, and his descriptions are amazing. I personally have driven over the same areas as the author, but I never encountered anything like these people, who are all drawn beautifully. I spent some time in the Chesapeake and I am eager to return and see the places again. The afterword tells us that he left the first wife, and that he took the trip in 1978, twenty years after Steinbeck did his tour; you can tell because Mt St Helen's has not blown up yet.

[cleoxcat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A little difficult to get into and to hold my attention. Dipped in and out. Prefer his book, "River Horse."

[maneekuhi · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

AN UNEMPLOYED ENGLISH PROFESSOR RUMINATING IN PLACES I DON'T WANT TO VISIT

Forty years ago William Lewis Trogdon (aka Heat-Moon) jumped in his pickup and circumnavigated the US (clockwise) driving mostly on back roads over three to four months. Four years after his return he completed "Blue Highways", a book that I found to be incredibly over-rated with too much bar-room dialog, poetry, history, and personal philosophy; this is supposed to be a travel book and what do I care about an unemployed English professor's view of life). One example - he seemed to avoid National Parks and Monuments, with a minor exception or two, and I find this to be one of the more disappointing flaws of the book. I don't see how a road book (the author says this is not a memoir, ha!) through the USA, particularly one inclusive of so many western states, can exclude our country's greatest treasures. I would guess that Trogdon would argue that "The People" are our greatest treasures. Fine, but then he could have very easily have gotten far more interesting stories by camping out in the middle of Times Square and grabbing random passersby - after all, there are now far more than eight million stories....

At page ten of the book I had high hopes - the author had just described a little town in Kentucky, LaGrange, where seven freight trains ran down Main Street each day. I immediately grabbed a notecard and referenced LaGrange KY, and slipped it in my file for my own next road trip (#6). I thought it would be cool to sit in a small town diner and watch a freight ramblin' by as I ate breakfast. I continued reading with the expectation of adding many more gems from the remaining 400 pages. But there weren't any. There were many mentions of small towns, with oral history from many senior locals, but in the rest of "Blue Highways" I did not encounter another place that I would want to visit. I checked out several on Google Maps, and most had seen better days. Many appeared to be little more than gas stations at crossroads, perhaps with a mini-mart nearby; many seemed to be run by folks hanging on thanks only to their social security checks.

At the three quarter point of the book, just as the author was entering the north east, he seemed to me to be getting increasingly testy and irritable. Maybe living for several weeks in the back of a truck will do that to you. Throughout the book, the author constantly made critical comments about change in general, and seemed to really relish the good old days (and he only in his upper 30s when he wrote this). He was very critical of the NE and found trash and concrete everywhere, and he was particularly harsh in his comments about West Virginia. Interesting, since I found more trash at the foothills of the Rockies, especially in Colorado, than I did in most of the 47 states that I have visited. (Texas would come a close second).

Now in all fairness to the writer, I note that there are many people who like this book very much. If you are giving consideration to reading it, I would suggest that you stop at your local bookstore (or Amazon if there is a "Look Inside" feature for this), and read a few pages. I do not recommend it, nor will I read other Least-Moon books.

[nero56 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great meandering travelogue. Backroads America at its best.

[ginger.hewitt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A bit dated, but nonetheless a cool travelogue.

[bexaplex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Blue Highways is a perfect companion to a certain kind of travel — the kind where you don't know where you're going, but know you don't want to be where you have been. The book is also masterfully written, with a kind of postmodernist circling about (what is the meaning of travel, of life?) punctuated by a wealth of ecological and historical knowledge about places. They balance each other well, so that the book isn't just an encyclopedia of minutia, nor a tiresome epistemological navel-gazer.

[con.rad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's funny how reading the book takes me to the places I am most familiar with by the end of the book. I've been to the places in New England he talks about and by this time, the rest of the country feels like a strange land.
Overall, a insight from a perspective we rarely see, and a flavor that makes the commonplace seem so much stranger. The stories of the people he meets are the best part, and the scarcity is not unfamiliar, it is sometimes hard to get people to trust you when you are just passing through, although, sometimes that can be a freeing opportunity.

[ava0st0claire · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

loved it! I will read it again.

[msarki_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first foray into Heat-Moon and such an enjoyable trip I decided to go for another with him.

[oldman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A journey across America and the people seen there. Also a journey into the author's life and how he deals with it. A book worth re-reading

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For armchair tourists like myself, who prefer reading to travelling, William Least Heat-Moon is the perfect tour guide to late 1970s America. Part travelogue, part journey of self-discovery, Heat-Moon set off one day in his campervan - a 'self-propelled box' he calls 'Ghost Dancing' - to drive around the 'blue highways', or b-roads, of America, meeting a host of wacky characters along the way. Really, without photographic evidence of some of the people he strikes up conversations with, I would have my doubts about the authenticity of his anecdotes! My favourites are the droll Carolina deputy - 'Garrantee one thing, Wim. This boy wouldn't sleep up here mongst the whangdoodles withouten his peace of mind' - the two women running a cafe on a bombing range in Nevada, the disgruntled husband in Hat Creek, California, and the eighty year old keeper of local history on Smith Island, Maryland. Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction!

Heat-Moon, on his circular journey of 'emergence' around the States - taking in places with odd names from the east, south, west and north of the country - is a friendly and instructive combination of Bill Bryson and John Steinbeck. In between random dialogues with strangers, Heat-Moon is full of insightful and lyrical descriptions of his homeland. I also love his turn of phrase, from 'the expression of a man pulling on wet swimming trunks' (think about it) to the 'texturised substitute in polystyrene sarcophagus' he was forced to eat in a fast food outlet. People, places and poetic imagery, all in one entertaining guide (could have done with less Walt Whitman quotes, though).

Not only has Blue Highways left me hungry for more travelogues - perhaps Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - but I am also tempted to start reading about the history of America, which hopefully survives in books where shopping malls and parking lots have destroyed the living evidence in real life.

[stephenhughes_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fine travelogue of out-of-the-way places and the many different "hearts" of America. Least Heat Moon also has a great ear for dialect.

[dele2451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good look at the America and Americans we all believe are still out there, but we rarely get to see. Be warned though, this book is sure to get you thinking about chucking everything and hopping in your own vehicle to hit the open road.

[polaris4_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In a word - Excellent!

[oreillynsf_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You never forget your first travelogue, and this was mine. It was the start of a passion that stays with me to this day, 20idon'twantottalkaboutit years later. Every couple of years I return to this marvelous book and see new things in the ideas and text. The author's personal honesty impresses me every time I read it, as does his profound respect for other people - from whatever walk of like. It was also the first book I read from an American Indian perspective, and his gentle (and not so gentle) illumination of cultural and historical issues also has had a lasting impact on me. Definitely absitively pick this up.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm a sucker for travel memoirs. I just love hearing about the author's trip and the people they meet along the way. But a travel memoir is only as good as the author's writing and this one is wonderful. It reminded me a lot of Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

Heat-Moon loses his job as a professor and separates from his wife. These two events motivate him to take a van and drive around the entire country. He tries to stick to the back roads instead of the interstates. He is truly gifted at describing people. This is just one example,

"Alice was one of those octogenarians who make old age look like something you don't want to miss."

I love that! On his journey he visits towns where racism sits just below the surface, kindness spills out onto the sidewalks, mosquito swarm, fisherman swear and there's no shortage of delicious food.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the amazing Frank Muller, but had a hard copy I flipped through while listening because it included maps and photos of the people he met. I would recommend doing the same if you listen to it.

[ffstorer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best of Least-Heat Moon's books.