"One For The Road: Hitchhiking Through The Australian Outback," by Tony Horwitz

"One For The Road: Hitchhiking Through The Australian Outback," by Tony Horwitz, (New York: Random House, First Vintage Departures Edition, 1988), 222 pages.

Travelling through outback Australia by car is no easy feat, but Tony Horwitz has gone one further in hitchhiking through it, alone. One For the Road is the story of Horwitz’s mid-1980's hitchhiking journey that started from Sydney and went anti-clockwise through the outback parts of the states of New South Wales and Queensland until he reached the Three Ways in the Northern Territory. Horwitz then changed direction and travelled south through Central Australia until he reached the southern coast, where he changed directions again travelling clockwise, first west, then north and later east until he reached Darwin. Hitchhiking anywhere isn't easy. Divers are reluctant of offer rides. The conditions in outback Australia make hitchhiking difficult. There is the oppressive heat, the flies, the long distances between tiny towns, the rough and unsealed roads, and perhaps alarmingly, the alcohol-fueled drivers (who regularly drink beer while driving) that take a life in their hands when they offer a ride to the hitchhiker. Horwitz endures these difficulties, survives the harsh conditions, and runs out of ways to describe the monotonous and featureless landscapes to tell us of his experiences of living on the road. The generous souls that offer him a ride are a varied lot. They include a family from Tasmania (where the mine closed) looking for work in the Western Australian mines, an angry and aggressive youth going for a drive for something to do, truck drivers who regret not being able to see their families and are strangers in their own home, a retired naval officer who hit the road when the in-laws were about to visit who still has the sailor's habit of keeping a detailed log book, a young physician out for a drive in the countryside, and a car load of young aboriginal men that drive a car that barely runs. Horwitz also visits places with strange names that the tourist rarely see, goes to small "one pub" towns where drivers only stop to re-fuel and eat before embarking on the next leg of their journey into the "ghastly blank." He also ventures into larger towns and cities like the mining town of Mount Isa, Alice Springs, Perth, exotic Broome, and his ultimate destination of Darwin. He also chronicles his unusual adventures, such as when he was lucky to avoid meeting his maker in a car accident while driving from Ayers Rock / Uluru to Alice Springs. Or there's the account of his day on a crayfish trawler off Geraldton where he spends most of the day seasick, much to the delight of the rest of the crew, and his hitching a ride with a wheat train where he spent time up front in the engine driver's cab. Much of the book has an absence of any awareness of time or deadlines, but at the end of his journey, they become a major pre-occupation because he has to be in Darwin on a certain day at a certain time to catch a place. Time is against him in the end, and he has to use his wits to avoid being beaten by it.

The great strength of this book is that it captures a part of Australia that few people, let alone the majority of coast-hugging Australians, have ever experienced. Horowitz also sees it with ordinary people. He shares with us the joys and travails of the hitchhiker who doesn't know what his next driver will be like, friendly, surly, vibrant conversationalist or it opposite. He shares with us the experience of his front-seat confessional, his driver's thoughts, aspirations, fears and regrets, all while driving through the vast landscapes slip past. It is these features that make One For The Road more than just a travel book; its an inner journey of discovery for the author, and for him, the end of his time hitchhiking. His brush with mortality keeps replaying in the videotape of his mind, reminding him of how lucky he was that the car rolled one way, and not the other. A conversation with one female driver makes him long to be at home his wife in the safety of the suburbs in Sydney. His celebration of Passover in Broome is truly moving, and perhaps the best chapter of the book: it is a reminder of how our past and the religion that we may (or in the author's case may no longer) practice is part of our identity. It is something that makes us what we are, for a brief moment or evening, unites us in a common bond with complete strangers when a long way from home and scattered throughout the world far from our loved ones.

One For The Road is an outsider's view of Australia, a view that is accurate without being condescending, sentimental or evangelical. Perhaps this is because the author is a journalist, someone who sets it all out for us to see with our own eyes with brutal honesty, compassion and affection. He shows here the skills of a fine writer, someone who unsurprisingly went on to write other fine works of non-fiction. For these reasons, it should appeal to a wide audience of lovers of good writing and interesting stories, lovers of travel stories, and readers interested in the "real Australia" that isn't seen in the travel brochures.

“Teacher Man,” by Frank McCourt

“Teacher Man,” by Frank McCourt, (New York: Scribner; 2005), 258 pages.

  

In Frank McCourt’s third book, “Teacher Man,” he again writes about his favorite subject, himself; however, in this book McCourt expands upon his earlier recollections of his vocation as a teacher in the New York City public school system. This subject was covered quite nicely in the second volume of his autobiography “’Tis,” where he wrote of his experiences as a teacher as part of the journey of his life from an impoverished immigrant to an accomplished and revered high school teacher. His time as a teacher was an important component of the story of his life in that book. “Teacher Man” is different in that it puts Frank McCourt, the respected teacher, as the subject of the book, and relegates other aspects of his life into the background.

“Teacher Man,” while predominantly autobiographical, is also a commentary on the teaching profession in the public school system. McCourt notes that success is determined by the speed at which teachers abandon the classroom and seek shelter in the administrative bureaucracy. Successful teaching is admired for its own sake, but it is not rewarded like successful teacher administration. McCourt also demonstrates what teachers like him had to do to “break through” with dis-interested students. As the teacher of very ordinary students, he sometimes had to be innovative and use methods that some might think of as radical or inappropriate. For example, to get the attention of the vocational school English class, he drew upon their extensive experience of forging parental excuse notes to teach a class on writing excuse notes. With a fully attentive and engaged class, he challenged them to write an excuse note from Adam of God. Success in the classroom was not always mirrored in McCourt’s private life. He failed to fulfill his own (or his wife’s) ambitions of becoming successful: he did not become a teaching administrator, and spent two years in Ireland studying for a Ph. D without success.

This book succeeds on many levels. It is a fine memoir of the career of a teacher. It is also a critique and commentary on the successes and failures of the American public school system. It also gives us an insight into how good teachers can make a difference in the lives of students, and occasionally fail to “get through” to certain troubled students. It also goes over  McCourt’s well trodden ground of the difficulties faced by new immigrants in escaping their impoverished childhoods. For all these reasons, this is a highly commendable book. Despite such accolades, it is not without flaws. At times McCourt lapses into the habit of giving us too much detail of certain aspects of his personal life. His disclosures may offend some readers or be considered in poor taste, particular those that detail his infidelities. Nonetheless, it is honest; perhaps to a fault, but it is a very rewarding read. And now that this revered literature teacher has passed away, we can be thankful for what he has written, while speculating on what he may have written had he not passed away. One can’t help but think that there may have been another book or two in Frank McCourt on a subject other than his autobiography. Unfortunately that was not to be, and we are all the poorer for it.