The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America

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Summary: A King In This Genre
Review: I am predisposed to liking books in this genre in which a person goes through some form of travel odyssey or ordeal and emerges that bit changed. "The Kindness of Strangers - penniless across America" is one of the best in its class and in my view I'd rank it among others like "Castaway" by Lucy Irvine, "Sea Change" by Peter Nicholls or "Adrift" by Steven Callahan. Now I'm left just wanting to know what happened to Mike McIntyre subsequently and how did he come to write the book in Guatamala. Above all, does he have more work in the pipeline?

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Summary: refreshing glimpse of American spirit
Review: in light of recent events this book shed a ray of light on the dimming light of humanity in our world. A man leaves home with only identification and hitch hikes across the country relying only on the "kindness of strangers." Although he clearly points out that were he not male and caucasion the outcome could have been much different, the story is still heart warming. I have recommended this to sooo many friends and all have thanked me profusely for helping them search their hearts and souls with out being battered with questions of faith.

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Summary: McIntyre takes you on an eloquently captured adventure.
Review: This book is a great read. I couldn't set it down. McIntrye has an amazing ability to capture the humor, irony and sadness in the lives of every day people. He meets the full spectrum of amazing characters, as well as ordinary people, and writes with beautiful simplicity, reminiscent of Raymond Carver. This is an adventure for the 90's, when most Americans fear adventuring into their own country

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Summary: The Kindness of Strangers...
Review: This book reminds me a little of Scott Savage's book (A Plain Life: Walking My Belief), although the author is not a Quaker. Reading one chapter in another book was enough to draw me to this title.

At 37, Mike McIntyre was an established journalist, with a good job in San Francisco, a girlfriend, a nice apartment. His job enabled him to travel all over the world, but he felt moved to leave it all behind, and travel by the grace of others from the West Coast to Cape Fear, North Carolina. He feels he's a coward, that he's afraid to take a gamble with anything...neither of these being words that describe Quakers. But his feeling that an inner voice is telling him to do this, and his conviction to go ahead despite less than encouraging words from his family ("you'll get raped," his own grandmother tells him) are, to me, a spiritual calling. He says he will not take money, not even if he finds it on the road in front of him. He sets out, wary but determined to go. Like Scott Savage's need to turn over his already expired driver's license, McIntrye has picked his destination as a symbolic gesture. "If I make it to Cape Hope," he says, "it will be as a different man from the one who starts the journey. I am afraid."

Right out the door, he finds himself a fill-in guest house on a talk show ("Life in the Country") on a local radio station. He isn't alone as a guest - his new partner is a tall, blond with red lipstick and high heels, a firefighter named Diana, who used to be named Dennis. The book is full of strange encounters, and is an interesting read, to put it mildly.