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Summary: Blue Highways . . . a Blue Print
Review: BLUE HIGHWAYS . . . These are the 1st words of the book. And they are granted one whole page. "On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk - times neither day nor night - the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and that's the time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself." I bought BH as quickly as I could after having read its review in NYT Book Review back in 1982. I bought a cofee, sat in a plush chair, cracked the binding and opened the book to this page. I read these words. I stopped, but my eyes remained fixed. I read these words again. Again. And, again. I could not turn the page. Suddenly, I was back in the early 60's when I was an engineering student with an Austin Healy. I remembered sitting at the top of a hill somewhere in the country just as the night's darkness was forced aside by the morning's early light. I read the opening paragraph again. Again. And, again. I could not turn the page. That was all I could read. It took years before I could read the book. I attempted to explain this experience to my friends but received little more than a supportive and patronizing smile. I bought copies of BH for a half-dozen friends and asked them to read the book and tell me what happened to them. Only one guy, a bother under the skin, seemed to 'understand.' I have read BH since . . . at least a half-dozen times. It pulls me back still like a . . . well, a Blue Highway. If the words in the 1st paragraph make your eyes grow glassy, silence your world, and stir your heart then buy Blue Highways. If the words didn't, then, uh . . ..
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