Old Glory: a Voyage Down the Mississippi

Jacket Description/Flap: The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing. In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks. Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from America's capitals ot power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for its lost past. Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself. Biographical Note: Jonathan Raban lives in Seattle, Washington. Marc Notes: Originally published: New York: Simon and Schuster, c1981.

Contributor Bio:  Raban, Jonathan Jonathan Raban was born in 1942, educated at Hull University, and was for a time a lecturer at UCW Aberystwyth and the University of East Anglia before becoming a full-time writer in 1969. His books include 'Soft City' (1973), 'Arabia Through the Looking Glass' (1979), 'Old Glory' (1981, Heinemann Award, RSL Thomas Cook Award), 'Foreign Land' (1985), 'Coasting' (1986), 'For Love and Money' (1987), and 'Hunting Mister Heartbreak' (1990, Thomas Cook Award). He has sailed alone round Britain and has spent much time afloat on the coastal seas of Europe. He is now living in Seattle, where he sails a Swedish ketch on the rim of the North Pacific.