“A poet’s song to the rewards of wandering and the joy of the highway. A bracing tonic and one this sorry, sad-assed, gadget-obsessed nation needs to hear again and again.” –William Hjortsberg, author of Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
From a beer carton full of rain-blurred and spine-broken journals come these tales of the road, trail and barstool. Setting out from a writing cabin outside of Grayling, Michigan, Beaudin casts him thumb into the waters of M-72 — returning to the music of the open road. Inspired by Bashō’s haibun classics such as Narrow Road to the Deep North and Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton, these nine movements, with their accompanying interludes and caesurae, span over a decade of traveling the highways and byways of numerous countries both on and off the map. Through all the years and all the trips, the direction is the same: Beyond.
This special 10th anniversary edition has been completely revised by the author, and includes two new movements or “Bonus Tracks”: “Casa Parota,” a haibun written during a stay in a roadless Mexican village on the coast of Jalisco, and “The Hundred Highways Tour,” culled from journal entries during the original book tour for which Beaudin travelled 100 highways to read at bookstores, bars, libraries, festivals, art spaces and a cliff above the Pacific Ocean. It adds additional illustrations by Montana artist Edd Enders, created specifically for this new edition.
“This is the kind of book parents will hide from their graduating children, but which will be found nonetheless.” –Rick Bass, author of With Every Great Breath
Available from Elk River Books, your local, independent bookstore or from the good folks at BookShop.org.
Marc Beaudin 