One for the Road: Revised Edition

I prop my pack against the fence as a windbreak. Huddled behind it, I pull on two pairs of pants, three shirts, four pairs of socks--my entire wardrobe in fact, except for the dung-covered shirt and five pairs of elastic-waisted underwear. No room for dignity here, at the center of a cyclone. I put the jockey shorts over my head, one pair at a time, fitting the fly over my nose to let a little oxygen in.

With only a backpack and a sense of adventure, he shares his journey with the reader, skillfully describing the mostly desolate terrain and the people he meets along the way. His sense of humor and instinctive quest for the quirky detail made me smile often and I tried to read this small 206-page book as slowly as possible because I just wanted it to last.

I'm a mature city-dwelling grandmother and it's unlikely I'll ever stand by the side of the road with a cardboard sign and an outstretched thumb (or index finger as they do in Australia) waiting for a stranger to open a car door and share a little piece of his or her life with me. But for the moments that I was engaged in the book, Tony Horwitz brought me right there.

He made me feel the 100-degree-plus heat, the flies so dense he had to squint his eyes. My head swirled with the countless bottles of beer he described drinking as he tried to ignore the fact that most of the drivers who picked him up were drunk. He slept in his clothes by the side of the road, met aboriginals and opal diggers and got seasick working as a deck hand on a fishing boat.

And I also experienced the wonder of it all, the freedom of waking up in the morning and not knowing what the day will bring, the time to relish each moment, and the writer's eye to make the trip real for the many people destined to read his book. Occasionally, the book got a bit slow, but that is not a criticism, but rather just part of the reality of the experience.

I really loved this book. And wish there were more books out there by this author. Hopefully, he'll write another book soon. And I know I'll be one of the first in line to order it.


on the road again with Horwitz   February 8, 2000
Jonathan C. Owen (Barrow, AK United States)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

No book by Horwitz can be categorized easily. Rather than a "travel" book, it reads more like an existential narrative in which the author immerses himself in the Australian outback and studies the persons he encounters as well as the places. In the process, he seems to take a journey inward, and discovers some things about himself. I learned some about the outback from this book; Horwitz addresses racial tensions (though without the depth of understanding that he later shows in "Confederates"). He is terrifically funny, with just a thin edge of cynicism. To me, however, this book's real draw is what it teaches about humans who choose to live in the "bush", i.e., far from civilization. Those who do so often gravitate to one of two extremes. Either they become gregarious and extroverted (read: constantly ready and able to tell fabulous whoppers in which they are cast in the starring role), or they eventually see interaction with other humans a frightful chore (read: a thousand yard stare in a ten foot room). The characters vignetted by Horwitz portray this accurately, as I daily see the same two extremes, living in "bush" Alaska for 7 years. It's just colder here. Read this book if you're interested in people who choose to live outside the lines. I recommend it.


The Real "Sunburnt" Country   July 30, 2001
sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Tony Horwitz, with an Australian bride is residing in Sydney, and thoroughly fed up with the sameness of city life, embarks upon a hitchhikerys tour of the Outback. At the outset, I couldnyt quite get my mind around the premise of trying to hitch rides in an area so desolate, a day or two might go by before a car was even seen, let alone a driver that would extend the courtesy of a ride. Tony is here to tell you it can be done with a lot of determination on his part and friendliness and compassion on the part of his Australian hosts. (At certain junctures, I would call these affable drivers ylife saversy as well.)

The author has unique encounters with the yrealy people of the Outback: truck drivers, farmers (ycockiesy), Aboriginals, and opal miners. I enjoyed his laid-back sense of humor, his insightfulness, and ymost of allyhis willingness to be human like the rest of us. He dislikes spending the night under the stars, canyt pitch a tent, is agonized by flies and mosquitoes and becomes violently sea-sick while catching a yridey in a crawfish trawler.

The chapter yPearls Before Matzo Ballsy describes trying to find a Jewish family with whom to celebrate Passover in the delightful town of Broome in Western Australia. He looks in the telephone book in vain for a Jewish name, but finally gets steered in the right direction by an unusual Catholic priest. This chapter epitomizes the hilarious strangeness of his entire trip to the red hot center of Australia.

It is a good idea to read the glossary at the back before you begin. I found that a yPuby is called a yhotely in the Outback, and I kept wondering why in world all these Holiday Inn/Marriott-types were sitting in the middle of nowhere. Another warning, the Outback is awash in beer. In the Western Territory, the average yearly consumption is 52 gallons (!) for every man, woman and child. Distances between yhotelsy are measured in six-packs rather than miles or kilometers.

A fun, sprightly read, though when you reach the end of the journey, you mightylike Tonyyhave a bit of a hangover!


Australian Outback pub crawl...   September 15, 2004
Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Two of my favorite books are Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic and Blue Latitutdes. So I was anxious to read his earlier works. One for the Road was actually published in 1987, but was re-released in 1999 after the success of his later books. Twenty seven years old and freshly married to a girl from Australia, Horwitz decides to take a break from his newspaper job and follow a teenage fantasy to hitchhike through the Outback of Australia.

The Outback is more desolate than you could even imagine. Thousands of miles of highway snake through this barren area, and many of them are not even paved. In many spots, livestock outnumber people by as much as 2000 to one. The landscape has very few distinguishing characteristics save for the many abandoned cars and trucks that dot the roadway. People who travel through Aboringinal areas need special permission. And maps are totally undependable when it comes to landmarks in that rivers are dry, lakes are nonexistent, and towns may consist of a few houses, a petrol station and always a pub. Even a large town sneaks up on Horwitz in that almost all the houses, hotels, shops and restaurants are burrowed underground. Kangaroos, wombats and emus far outnumber cars, and a busy road might see three vehicles in a day. Traveling becomes more an act of survival than a pleasant pastime.

The Outback is made even more interesting by the people Horwitz meets. A young couple with a baby travel 800 miles round trip every 2-3 weeks for supplies. Young men give up their jobs to try their luck in the opal mines. A Tasmanian family rides through on vacation. A group of Japanese scientists are searching for a clearer view of Halley's Comet. And ranchers and Aborginals abound. The Outback is truly a melting pot, and Horwitz finds people from almost all parts of the glove. What ties all of them together are the pubs. Very few of the inhabitants of the Outback will drive by a pub with out stopping for brew, and then stocking up more for the road. Alcoholism is a major problem in Australia.

Horwitz loves to travel and seems to have made it a career. One for the Road is entertaining, but this book is a lightweight next to Confederates in the Attic (where he travels through the south) and Blue Latitudes (following the journeys of Captain Cook). Still, for a person who will probably never travel to Australia, it's a fascinating look at a very remote area. One for the Road also gives us a peak at the future of what this talented writer will become. And finally, as a young groom, it allowed Horwitz one last folly before settling down for good.



I want to buy Tony a beer...if he still needs one.   July 19, 2005
Headbang8 (Bogenhausen, Munich)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

As another American who lived in Australia for many years, let me assure any prospective buyer of this book that the author really gets the place.

He started out like many, seduced by life in megalopolitan Sydney, thinking that the superficial similarites between two essentially suburban cultures mean that there's little for an American to learn from his adopted home.

Life on the road teaches him otherwise.

There's a certain melancholy to life in Australia, which Horwitz comes to understand over his journey; the physical journey across a forbidding continent contrasts with his internal journey as a moden young man, a lapsed rebel, a faithful husband and a sentimentally observant Jew (Is this trip his own wandering in the desert, perhaps?)

I was moved by the story of Horwitz's passage across the northwest of Western Australia (beginnning on page 136). It's here that he surrenders his obsession with getting to the next town, and begins to understand the weft and weave of his surroundings.

The story of finding a Jewish family in Broome with whom to celebrate Passover--an Akubra sunhat acting as a makeshift yarmulke--warmed my heart, simply because I know that any true Australian would be equally welcoming to a displaced stranger.

And the story of Anzac Day the following morning...well, I've never heard anyone capture the curious mixture of joy and pain that marks the Australian Memorial Day as succinctly as Tony did. An ostesnsible victory witout glory--what kind of a nation does this make? He summed it up in three paragraphs or so.

Buy it, even if you never intend to visit Australia. It will help you understand the mind of an eventual Pulitzer Prize winner, and the experiences that opened his mind.

Oh, by the way, Tony, I'm serious about the offer of a beer.