Research Catalog

Title

Truckin' with Sam : a father and son, the Mick and the Dyl, rockin' and rollin', on the road / by Lee Gutkind with Sam Gutkind.

Author

Gutkind, Lee

Publication

Albany, N.Y. : Excelsior Editions, State University of New York Press, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Gutkind, Sam.

Description

xvi, 185 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

• ""In this funny and moving tale about the long strange trip that is fatherhood, Gutkind offers readers a precious truth that it is only through the eyes of our children that we see ourselves clearly. Ariel Sabar, author of My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. This blazingly original memoir has just become my favorite American road story. When Lee Gutkind and his teenage son, Sam, light out for adventure on the highway, what is supposed to be a vision-quest turns into a struggle for the driver's seat. Gutkind writes better than anyone about the heartbreaking and thrilling sacrifices of parenthood. This Book is the Fear and Loathing of fatherhood turns hilarious, twisted, and poignant.^
• ͠ Pagan Kennedy, author of The First Man-Made Man:The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution and Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo" Truckin' with Sam is a multilevel traveling tale that takes you around the globe in more ways than one. Lee Gutkind has written a superb account of the father-son bond as it evolves in the heat and heart of their many adventures."͠ Lauren Slater, author of Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir" After years of thinking he'd never have kids, Lee Gutkind became a father at forty-seven and, following his divorce, soon found himself taking over more and more of the primary care responsibilities for his son, Sam.^
• As one of a growing number of "old new dads" (recent studies have shown that one in ten children are born to fathers over forty), Gutkind realized that he faced challenges ͠both mental and physical ͠not faced by younger dads, not the least of which was how to bond with a son who was so much younger than himself. For the past seven years, Gutkind's approach to this challenge has been to spend one to two months of every summer "truckin"' with Sam, a term they define as a metaphor for spontaneity, a lack of restriction: "Truckin' means that you can do what you want to do sometimes; you don't always need to do what's expected. What began as long, cross-country journeys in a pickup truck, including one memorable trip up the Alaska-Canadian Highway en route to a writers conference in Homer, Alaska, have in more recent years ranged farther afield, to Europe, Australia, Tibet, and Africa.^
• Whether listening to rock-and-roll music, entertaining themselves with their secret jokes and code words, fishing for halibut, or fighting over tuna fish sandwiches and how best to butter one's toast, Lee and Sam have learned to respect one another. In the process of their travels and their adventures, Lee has also come to grips with the downside of middle age and the embarrassment of "senior moments, " while Sam has inevitably begun to assert himself and shape his own life. Interspersed with Sam's own observations and journal entries, Truckin' with Sam is an honest, moving, and often hilarious account of one father's determination to bond with his son, a spontaneous travelogue that will appeal to old dads, new dads, and women who want to know more about how dads (and sons) think and behave."--BOOK JACKET.

Alternative Title

Trucking with Sam

Subjects

• Récits de voyages
• Travel writing
• Biographies
• Pickup trucks > Alaska Highway
• Fathers and sons > Alaska Highway
• Fathers and sons > United States > Biography
• Gutkind, Sam > Travel > Alaska Highway
• Gutkind, Lee > Travel > Alaska Highway
• Yukon > Description and travel
• British Columbia > Description and travel
• Alaska > Description and travel
• Alaska Highway > Description and travel

Genre/Form

• Travel writing
• Biographies
• Récits de voyages.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Portal: North Dakota June 2004 -- The Evolution of Truckin' -- Chasing Madness -- Trapped at the Border -- Listening to the Road -- Wet Run -- The Jack London of Rock and Roll -- Hello? -- Artful Charlie -- The Dyl -- Anticipation -- Tuna Fish Trouble -- Sam's Dangerous Disease -- Another Border Crossing -- Buttering Toast -- Father Knows Best? -- The Rope Test -- The "Make My Day" Syndrome -- The Red Bike -- Hakuna Matata: Africa July 2009 -- Laowai: Tibet March 2008 -- Creation Elation -- Moshe Dann -- Radio Shack -- Rose -- Aunt Hattie -- Getting Lost and Losing It -- The Big Picture -- Antelope Galloping -- Paul and Barbara -- Bears on the Brain -- Winning (and Losing) the Race -- The Summit -- Old Men -- The G₎del Connection -- Lee Gutkind.

ISBN

• 9781438432595 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 1438432593 (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009051679

OCLC

• 468974392
• SCSB-10829278

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library