With only a backpack and a sense of adventure, he shares his journey with the reader, skillfully describing the mostly desolate terrain and the people he meets along the way. His sense of humor and instinctive quest for the quirky detail made me smile often and I tried to read this small 206-page book as slowly as possible because I just wanted it to last.
I'm a mature city-dwelling grandmother and it's unlikely I'll ever stand by the side of the road with a cardboard sign and an outstretched thumb (or index finger as they do in Australia) waiting for a stranger to open a car door and share a little piece of his or her life with me. But for the moments that I was engaged in the book, Tony Horwitz brought me right there.
He made me feel the 100-degree-plus heat, the flies so dense he had to squint his eyes. My head swirled with the countless bottles of beer he described drinking as he tried to ignore the fact that most of the drivers who picked him up were drunk. He slept in his clothes by the side of the road, met aboriginals and opal diggers and got seasick working as a deck hand on a fishing boat.
And I also experienced the wonder of it all, the freedom of waking up in the morning and not knowing what the day will bring, the time to relish each moment, and the writer's eye to make the trip real for the many people destined to read his book. Occasionally, the book got a bit slow, but that is not a criticism, but rather just part of the reality of the experience.
I really loved this book. And wish there were more books out there by this author. Hopefully, he'll write another book soon. And I know I'll be one of the first in line to order it.
A 27-year-old traversing the Australian outback is bound to be a hilarious experience. Indeed, it is. If you're looking for a great coming of age book and cultural experience, I highly recommend this book.The Real "Sunburnt" Country Tony Horwitz, with an Australian bride is residing in Sydney, and thoroughly fed up with the sameness of city life, embarks upon a hitchhiker?s tour of the Outback. At the outset, I couldn?t quite get my mind around the premise of trying to hitch rides in an area so desolate, a day or two might go by before a car was even seen, let alone a driver that would extend the courtesy of a ride. Tony is here to tell you it can be done with a lot of determination on his part and friendliness and compassion on the part of his Australian hosts. (At certain junctures, I would call these affable drivers ?life savers? as well.)
The author has unique encounters with the ?real? people of the Outback: truck drivers, farmers (?cockies?), Aboriginals, and opal miners. I enjoyed his laid-back sense of humor, his insightfulness, and ?most of all?his willingness to be human like the rest of us. He dislikes spending the night under the stars, can?t pitch a tent, is agonized by flies and mosquitoes and becomes violently sea-sick while catching a ?ride? in a crawfish trawler.
The chapter ?Pearls Before Matzo Balls? describes trying to find a Jewish family with whom to celebrate Passover in the delightful town of Broome in Western Australia. He looks in the telephone book in vain for a Jewish name, but finally gets steered in the right direction by an unusual Catholic priest. This chapter epitomizes the hilarious strangeness of his entire trip to the red hot center of Australia.
It is a good idea to read the glossary at the back before you begin. I found that a ?Pub? is called a ?hotel? in the Outback, and I kept wondering why in world all these Holiday Inn/Marriott-types were sitting in the middle of nowhere. Another warning, the Outback is awash in beer. In the Western Territory, the average yearly consumption is 52 gallons (!) for every man, woman and child. Distances between ?hotels? are measured in six-packs rather than miles or kilometers.
A fun, sprightly read, though when you reach the end of the journey, you might?like Tony?have a bit of a hangover!
He gains quirky inisights into the culture and land, and is nearly killed in a freak accident along the way! By the end of the book you'll be fluent in slang Australian...Horwitz even encloses a dictionary for your convenience.
"One for the Road" gives you a good flavor for the Aussie culture...but I was left with an uncertain feeling as to his purpose. It oscillates between a curiousity of Australia and a longing for his boyhood days of hitch-hiking. So it seems that from the start of his book to the end, he changed his purpose for writing it. Still a very enjoyable read. Horwitz writes as true seasoned journalist...his Aussie anecdotes will keep you intrigued in this page-turner.
