Driving Lessons

""Driving Lessons: A Road Trip through American Travel Literature" by Christopher B. Strain is a study of American travel literature, specifically a reflection on the tradition of the American road trip. Strain sets out to understand what makes this custom a prototypically American one, who travels, and why, through considerations of race, class, and gender. "Driving Lessons" not only contextualizes earlier American travel narratives, but also shows how these journeys of national discovery and personal redemption still resonate with readers and scholars. The book deftly blends together the story of the author's own four-month sojourn in an old van with the analysis of his literary predecessors' travel narratives"--