Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Heat Moon, William Least - ROBERT McDOWELL

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ROBERT McDOWELL

In Blue Highways: A Journey into America, William Least Heat Moon gives us an ambitious, aggressive, uneven tour of America's back roads and of his own self-awareness—or lack of it. Ultimately he neither succeeds nor fails. (p. 421)

What better way to get a grip on one's life, to observe, learn, and start again? Familiar precursors, On the Road, Travels with Charley, encourage us to settle in for a valuable, vicarious journey into our country and ourselves. This is the principle strength of Blue Highways—its concept. We are all familiar with America's massive identity crisis, common enough in a young country. And some of us are aware, too, of the need for more beneath-the-surface portraits held up to its face, to our faces. The concept is strong. In its unraveling Heat Moon convinces me that he is telling the truth perhaps forty percent of the time. And that's the problem. It is not enough of a problem to warrant...

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1. Introduction
2. Jonathan Yardley
3. John Updike
4. Don Shewey
5. ROBERT McDOWELL
6. Jim Crace
7. Copyright