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Summer is the season for road trips, and also for road trip stories. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may be the most famous example in American literature — but there are lots of other great road trip books, so this week the Book Review’s staff critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai presented readers with a list of 18 of their favorites. On this episode of the podcast they chat with the host Gilbert Cruz about the project, their picks and the top-down, wind blown, carefree appeal of the road trip narrative as a genre.
“It’s such a flexible form,” Garner says. “You can do anything with the road trip idea. So many novels that aren’t even road trip novels contain scenes where one of the major characters flees the house and goes away for a few days just to escape what’s there — often fleeing in search of something else.”
Books discussed in this episode:
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“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac
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“Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward
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“Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli
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“I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” by Lorrie Moore
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“Tramps Like Us,” by Joe Westmoreland
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“Driving Mr. Albert,” by Michael Paterniti
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“Gypsy: A Memoir,” by Gypsy Rose Lee
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“The Dog of the South,” by Charles Portis
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“All Fours,” by Miranda July
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“Hearts,” by Hilma Wolitzer
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“The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life,” by John le Carré
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“Machine Dreams,” by Jayne Anne Phillips
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“Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry
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“Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov
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“The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck
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“The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
The post It’s Still Summer. Let’s Talk Road Trip Books. appeared first on New York Times.
