Looking For America

Having patted me down for weapons, now that I was a suspect, Officer Scott asked me where I was headed next. I told him that I was bound for Orlando, then on to Alexandria, Virginia, on to Toledo, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois, to Madison, Wisconsin, to parts of North Dakota…’Man,’ he said, ‘I wish I could travel like that. But I’m stuck here.’ Armed only with an outsider’s insight, a sense of humour and sturdy shoes, journalist and writer Avirook Sen sets out on a journey across America. It is the year of the Obama election, the recession has arrived, and change is on its way-for America and the world. As he travels to places, both prominent and obscure, Sen finds stories at every stop: of the average Joe who feels the ‘hand of history’ on his shoulder even as he goes about shaping it with his vote, of radioactive frogs in Knoxville, Tennessee, and ghosts in Gary, Indiana, Michael Jackson’s hometown. Drug dealers talk about green cards, pastors discuss presidents, convicts state their convictions, as Sen engages America in conversation. The result is an engrossing narrative full of colour and pungent social commentary.