Description

Even before there was a road, there was a route. Buffalo trails, Indian paths, the old Santa Fe trace—all led across the Great Plains and the western mountains to the golden oasis of California. America’s insatiable westering urge culminated in Route 66, the highway that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. Opened in 1926, Route 66 became the quintessential American road.

A Route 66 Companion gathers fiction, poetry, memoir, and oral history. From accounts of pioneering trips across the western plains to a sci-fi fantasy of traveling Route 66 in a rocket, here are stories told by master storytellers Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Leslie Marmon Silko, and John Steinbeck. Interspersed are reminiscences that, for the first time, honor 66’s varied cultures—Native American, Mexican American, and African American, as well as Anglo. So put the top down, set the cruise control, and “make that California trip” with A Route 66 Companion.