
Description
USA Today bestseller
The New York Times bestselling author of They Knew, Hiding in Plain Sight, and The View from Flyover Country navigates a changing America as she and her family embark on a series of road trips, in a book that is part memoir, part history, and wholly unique.
It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland -- and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road -- again and again.
Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events –- the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic –- reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States -- physical, environmental, social, political -- transform through the car window.
Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future –- even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.
Product Details
Publisher | Flatiron Books |
Publish Date | April 01, 2025 |
Pages | 320 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9781250879882 |
Dimensions | 9.6 X 6.6 X 1.0 inches | 1.1 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
Praise for Sarah Kendzior's
The Last American Road Trip
USA Today bestseller
“Kendzior is an absolutely terrific writer—a preeminent voice of her generation—and her love for this troubled country flows like a kind of lifeblood through her work. I tore through The Last American Road Trip like it was a great novel—except that the sadness and wisdom it imparted stayed with me far longer than most fiction. Every American, whatever their politics, will recognize a country that they love, that they miss—and that they might be able to reclaim.” —Sebastian Junger
“If The Last American Road Trip doesn’t spark the urge to see more of America yourself, or if that yearning can’t be fulfilled, traveling with such an intelligent, perceptive guide isn’t a bad substitute.” —BookPage
“From struggling roadside spectacles to shuttered national parks, Sarah Kendzior shows readers where the fault lines lie.” —Chicago Review of Books
“The Last American Road Trip is part memoir, part travelogue and part parenting philosophy [...] She loves America deeply and honestly and mourns the catastrophic damage to its people, ideals and land. She doesn’t spare political elites of either party. Traveling with her across the country means taking a road trip punctuated with historical context that helps the reader understand what these places used to be and why they’ve become what they are.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Impassioned... Kendzior stitches together history, travelogue, and political analysis to deliver a trenchant defense of flyover country... It adds up to a poignant portrait of life in the Trump era.” —Publishers Weekly
“A graceful—and righteously angry—travelogue through a troubled land.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“In the fraternity of authors of iconic road trip books, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Kuralt, Pirsig and Che now must step back to make room for Sarah Kendzior and her marvelous new memoir, The Last American Road Trip. [. . .] a stunning American travelogue describing breathtaking national parks, dark and scary caves, raging rivers, obscure hideaways, greasy spoons, and the colorful people one meets there. And, too, it is an angry jeremiad lamenting the moral and political decline of our country during two chaotic presidential elections, a global pandemic, severe health restrictions requiring social distancing and masks, and what she calls 'massive technological change and climate catastrophes' that follow her family wherever they go.” —Ms Magazine
Praise for Sarah Kendzior’s
They Knew: How A Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent
“I am hurtling through They Knew with a wonderful mix of admiration, writerly envy, and the deep satisfaction that comes with realizing that there are good, brilliant people out there still fighting the good fight… It's such a relief to hear someone point out the obvious in such a clear, confident, unarguable way.”
―Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm
“They Knew is a must read. Sarah Kendzior is like the Joan Didion of Missouri.”
―Rachel Dodes, coauthor of The Memo
“The pathos of truth-seeking left me thinking of Herman Melville. I can't remember the last time I read a book where every sentence delivered."
―Timothy Snyder
“Kendzior chooses her examples of embedded crime with the skill of a brain surgeon—attempting a reverse lobotomy on a mostly comatose nation.”
―Wall Street on Parade
Praise for Sarah Kendzior’s
Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America
An instant New York Times bestseller
Washington Post bestseller
USA Today bestseller
“This fucking rocks.”
―Tori Amos
“Hiding in Plain Sight isn’t just about Trump, but about how crumbling democracies intent on rolling back the freedoms of its citizens create perfect conditions for the rise of dangerous autocrats.”
―Bitch Magazine, 2020 Nonfiction Preview
“Sarah Kendzior, in her brilliant new book, is one of the few journalists who grasps what is happening. Kendzior is a student of autocracy... she has been warning from the get-go that Trump is working to turn America into one.”
―David Cay Johnston, New York Times bestselling author of It's Even Worse Than You Think and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist
Praise for Sarah Kendzior’s
The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America
“Both prescient and honest...seeing the roots of the arguments that now dominate cable news is both fascinating and a little bit haunting in retrospect.” ―NPR
“It’s a call to arms, highlighting the struggles of disenfranchised, overworked, and underpaid Americans, and urging our elected officials to recognize and address the inequalities that have become even more pronounced since when she originally wrote the essays.” ―The Village Voice
“The talented Kendzior…writes intelligently and with great empathy about problems faced by the Midwest.” ―New York Post
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