The idea for Rich Smith’s second book is exhilarating – traveling around America for 80 days taking in our more obscure and weird festivals, taking part where possible. Smith starts out with the same winning tone and sense of adventure evident in recent American road-trip books by Chuck Klosterman (“Killing Yourself to Live”) and Sarah Vowell (“Assassination Vacation”), but Smith has a secret weapon – he’s an Englishman with an obvious fondness for the United States, mixed with a fine irreverence. Gearing up for his trip, he writes, “I enjoy small town America, its people and history and peculiarities.”
Like a trusty Phileas Fogg, he brings along a best friend, Antony, to share the experience. The two begin very strongly in Montana with a re-enactment of Custer’s Last Stand. “I had to commit suicide,” he writes, “since I couldn’t find a single person to kill me.”
In Georgia, where Smith observes lamely that visiting “America’s southern states is like stepping into another country,” they attend the Summer Redneck Games and the action heats up when the two dive in to the Mud Pit Belly Flop, with a helpful photograph to prove their point.
It is Smith’s canny observations that move the book along nicely. At the annual mooning of Amtrak in Southern California, as the crowd attempts to moon 36 trains that pass the town that day, he notes, it quickly degenerates into “a Hells Angels reunion.” Renting a PT Cruiser, Smith is miserable with what he describes as “a cross between a 1930s limousine and a hearse.”
As a Brit, he also notes that at most public events Americans can be seen drinking from red plastic cups: “A red plastic cup is America. It’s a symbol that typifies the nation, like the Bald Eagle, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty and obesity.”
He also shows up at the 21st Annual Cardboard Boat Race in Arkansas, the National Hobo Convention in Iowa, the Prison Rodeo at Oklahoma State Penitentiary and a Machine Gun Shoot in Kentucky. At the latter, he is aghast by one detail – the charge is $10 for adults, and “$5 for shooters under the age of 12.”
The tone of the book remains giddy and excited throughout – one young man’s summer in America. And ultimately, no matter how weird or obscure an event he is attending, his affection for our nation is what makes the book so winning. A love letter to our underbelly, all told in an English accent.
The Great American Attraction
by Rich Smith
Three Rivers Press