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

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. (May)