Sullivan (Rats
; The Meadowlands
) offers a boisterous, busily researched composite of trips he and his family have taken across the American continent. Sullivan claims he's gone from the West to East Coast and back about 27 times over the years, and on this particular summer sojourn, the vacationing family—comprising husband, wife and two kids, one a teenager—blast from Oregon back to their home in Brooklyn, N.Y., over five days. They first garner a personalized TripTik from AAA, which plots the route and provides essential information, then set out in a rented Impala. The author is adamant about stopping at the Columbia River Gorge to offer an extended digression on the Lewis and Clark expedition; the family then penetrates the intractable Bitterroot Range and manages to make time for Western highlights such as the Old Works Golf Course in Anaconda, Mont., before sailing through Woody Guthrie country; Jack Kerouac's gas station in Longmont, Colo.; and speedily over the George Washington Bridge. The coffee-addled navigator engages in entertaining discourses on the standardized highway system, Emily Post and the provenance of the convenience-store coffee lid, among other subjects. His narrative is fun and chatty, with an emphasis squarely on the West. (July)
