River-Horse

On the Road Again
There’s no shortage of 20th-century literature about traveling across America in a car. Even William Least Heat-Moon, author of River Horse, wrote a nonfiction work about his search in a beat-up Ford for himself and America (Blue Highways).

But not since the 19th-century adventures of Mark Twain, as told in Life on the Mississippi, have readers had the chance to vicariously take a journey across America by water rather than by road. River Horse, a voyage across America’s waterways, is a return to a bygone literary tradition. Following in the footsteps of America’s greatest explorers, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark, Heat-Moon traveled around the waterways of America in a 22-foot cruiser boat called Nikawa (Osage for “river horse”).

Heat-Moon covers 5,000-plus miles in four months, departing from Astoria, New York, and completing his journey in Astoria, Oregon. River Horse completes Heat-Moon’s trilogy of explorations of America and the American people, which he began with Blue Highways and Prairyerth.