Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey by William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon, Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, (New York: Little, Brown and Company; 2008),  581 pages.

When William Least Heat-Moon published Blue Highways, he established a reputation as a writer who knew that off the beaten track places offer big surprises. In this book, the author again chronicles his road travels in and around the small towns of the United States of America in search of "Quoz," things strange, incongruous, or peculiar. To Heat-Moon, "Quoz" can be history, hereditary stories retold or invented, or places and locations with a past often in danger of being forgotten or destroyed. The author travelled far and wide with an anonymous attorney friend in search of "Quoz." Within the continental United States, he travelled to the Southeast, Southwest, Northeast, the Northwest and numerous places in between. He did not take one single journey, but a series of journeys over an indeterminate period of time. He traveled to swamps in Florida, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, along an abandoned railway in Idaho on a bicycle adapted for riding on rails, engaged interesting characters in Wyoming, and investigated the so-called mysterious Quapaw Ghost Light of Oklahoma. He re-examined an old cold blooded murder in Joplin Missouri. He also traveled down an old waterway along the east costs of the United States, and to my surprise and enjoyment, wrote in great detail about the Starrucca Viaduct in Lanesboro Pennsylvania, a disused elevated masonry railway bridge of considerable size.

Heat-Moon is a skilled writer. The dust cover to this book does not exaggerate when it describes him as being a chronicler of rare genius and empathy. He has an ear for a good story, the personality to engage  strangers to extract information, and the ability to share it with others in writing. But sharing is too bland a description. Heat-Moon thoroughly investigated backgrounds and facts. He conveys to the reader some real gems of stories. He breathes life into forgotten facts, scandals and history. He makes the ordinary seem exciting. The author should be commended for making the "Quoz" the subject of his book. He avoids the habit so often seen in travel books of making himself and his reaction to his new environment the subject. Rather, Heat-Moon stands in the background highlighting the "Quoz" and by doing so, enriching our lives.

I've read two of the author's other works, Blue Highways and River-Horse, and like those books, I enjoyed this book immensely. I didn't want this book to end. I wanted Heat-Hoon to continue his travels and telling interesting and fascinating stories about the forgotten and overlooked parts of the United States of America. At times slow-paced and detailed, readers should be cautioned to not expect a "rollicking good read." This book is a mosey, a slow-paced and thoughtful examination of interesting and mostly forgotten places and discarded stories. I think this is a wonderful book, and expect many others will think the same after they read it.