Long Road Home: Journeys Through America's Present in Search of America's Past - Hardcover

O'Gara, Geoffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393026434 ISBN 13: 9780393026436

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1989

Synopsis

Retraces the steps of the writers for the Federal Writer's Project during the 1930s and looks at the changes that have taken place and includes quotes and photos from the original guides

About this title

From Library Journal:

Perusal of a state guide produced by the 1930s Federal Writer's Project led O'Gara to visit selected areas to note comparisons and contrasts with contemporary life. Each chapter consists of a departure city and a small town destination: Washington to Smoke Hole, West Virginia; New York to Barre, Vermont; New Orleans to the Plaquemines Delta, Louisiana; Kansas City to Smith Center, Kansas; Los Angeles to Knott's Berry Farm, Glendale, and Monterey, California; plus his home base of Wyoming. He quotes from the original guides, then offers his own colorful commentary on current custom. More a search for his roots than an organized description of today's America, this will be of interest primarily to those in the above locales and to social historians.
- Sondra Brunhumer, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Inspired by the famous state guides of the '30s prepared in WPA writers' projects, O'Gara, a Wyoming journalist, in 1985 drove through parts of the U.S. to see how the country had changed over the previous 50 years. In this beguiling account of his wanderings, searches and rediscoveries, he explores Smoke Hole, W.Va., New York City, Barre, Vt., New Orleans and Plaquemines, La., Kansas and California, and finally returns home to his family. The talkative old-timers and their descendants that he encounters and confronts, and the scenes of city and rural life he describes will remain in readers' memories long after they put this book down. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0393026434
• ISBN 13: 9780393026436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312