The Distance to the Moon: A Road Trip Into the American Dream

Attempting to follow in the literary paths carved out by his favorite ""road books"" (ranging from Stephen Ambrose's narrative of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Undaunted Courage, to Jack Kerouac's On the Road), journalist Morgan (If These Walls Had Ears) chronicles his own road trip from Miami to California. He drove his ""American-dream car into America's restless heart to see what I could fathom about where we've been and where we're headed--and why."" The problem with this sincere but overlong memoir isn't Morgan's objective, but his choice of transport--a brand-new ""rebelliously foreign"" Porsche Boxster, provided to him by Porsche Cars North America for the trip. Morgan's plan is ""to drive to the end of every day and see what happened."" But what results is example after example of people on the road and in parking lots giving Morgan the thumbs-up sign over his cool car and asking him about the speedster, which has yet to roll off the assembly line. Morgan manages to work into his journal the many auto-related incidences in his life, while visiting almost every old friend who had experienced them with him. However, what remains most memorable are all the people praising the car. Some of his concluding thoughts on his road experience (""I had found this to be a country of unexpected generosity.... The Porsche had seemed to bring that out in people"") make the book read more like a long advertisement for the Porsche company. (June)