Full name: Miles from Nowhere: Tales from America's Contemporary Frontier

Author: Dayton Duncan Year: 1993 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Travel, History, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780803266278 0803266278

"In this splendid book a gifted observer and a terrific idea have come together in a real love match. In 1990, a century after the census bureau's famous observation of the frontier's imminent end, Dayton Duncan set out in an aging GMC Suburban to visit a large sampling of counties outside Alaska that have fewer than two persons per square mile--the bureau's old standard for places still in a frontier condition. There are 132 such counties. All are in the West. . . . The result of his tour is an insightful and entertaining book, troubling and funny and consistently illuminating. . . . Much of the book's charm comes from Duncan's sketches of people who choose to live 'miles from nowhere'--ranchers in the Nebraska sandhills, a New Mexican bar owner, a priest and United Parcel Service driver along the Texas-Mexico border, and the descendant of a Seminole Negro army scout in west Texas. In them he finds characteristics associated with the mythic frontier. . . . Great fun to read."--Montana Born and raised in a small town in Iowa, Dayton Duncan has been a reporter, humor columnist, editorial writer, chief of staff to a governor, and deputy press secretary for presidential campaigns. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire. His books include Out West: An American Journey, also available in a Bison Books edition. Similar books: Charles Kuralt's America by Charles Kuralt Deep South by Paul Theroux Long Way Home by Bill Barich AA Gill is Away by A. A. Gill Stephen Fry in America by Stephen Fry Sunrise With Seamonsters by Paul Theroux Fresh-Air Fiend by Paul Theroux Lasso the Wind by Timothy Egan Weird U.S. by Mark Moran The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer by Eric Hansen Out West by Dayton Duncan The Lunatic Express by Carl Hoffman Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer White Sands by Geoff Dyer Roads by Larry McMurtry In Europe by Geert Mak A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane Cities of Gold by Douglas Preston South with Endurance by Frank Hurley