‘I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to’
And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn’t hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth…
The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature – hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache – and the book that first staked Bill Bryson’s claim as the most beloved writer of his generation. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states – united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity – he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.
The scope of Bryson’s travels is truly staggering; he does cover an awful lot of ground, and though there are plenty of places he blasts right through, he stops often enough to give glimpses of back road, small-town America in the not-so-distant past. The book ends on a surprisingly optimistic note. Though Bryson finds he can’t find the America of his childhood, he does admit, after all his carping and critiquing, that there are still places in America’s hinterlands where life is slow, good and sweet. This doesn’t quite excuse some of the more bitter commentary that came before, but it helps.
Read a review of The Lost Content
