A Walk Across America
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
Book Review
It’s just after the Vietnam War when Peter graduates from college disillusioned about his future and his country. He dons a backpack to travel on foot thousands of miles across the country. Peter leaves his New England home as a skeptic hoping to find the redeeming qualities of a nation that were absent from media news reports. Are you feeling somewhat cynical today?
While he hikes through winter weather on empty roads in unknown territory, his stamina is challenged and so are cultural stereotypes. His only companion a beloved Alaskan Malamute that saves his life more than once. Here are a few highlights:
The National Geographic magazine editor gives him a camera and film in Washington DC.
He stays with a mountain man living off the grid in the Appalachians.
While working at a sawmill, he lives with a black family in North Carolina.
He experiences heartbreak while at a commune in Tennesee.
The governor offers him a police escort in Alabama.
He meets his perfect woman in the most unlikely of places in Louisiana.
I laughed and cried from Peter’s stories as he encounters both rich and poor, city and country folk who greet him mostly with curiosity and kindness. The further he travels, the more his heart opens to the friends he meets as he sees the flawed greatness of our people.
This memoir was published in 1977, but the basic conflicts our country struggled against back then are still present today and it made me hopeful. It was a national bestseller, perfect for booklovers looking for a time out from the holidays and into the delight of true adventure.
Happy reading!
