Customer Reviews

Ghost Riders: Travels with American Nomads

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Richard Grant tries to understand and answer the question "What makes some people adopt a nomadic lifestyle, as oppose to those that choose the security of a fixed abode". The author himself admits to suffering from wanderlust and can therefore relate to those that he uses throughout this book to illustrate the driving force behind always being 'on the road'. From the original Indian tribes (Apache, Comanche etc.) to the first mountain men and up to the current tramps and hobos that travel across America, Grant uses largely historical stories to help you understand why people embraced nomadism.

These historical stories make for very interesting reading. They are not flavoured by the Hollywood view of the American West and really open your eyes to what were significant events and characters in American history. This to me was the strongest part of the book, as I felt that trying to compare the reasons behind the nomadic lifestyle of the Indians in the 17th & 18th century to that of today's wanderers was less successful.

I am not sure by the end of the book that the above question really does get answered but I certainly have a greater appreciation of what was and is involved in living the nomadic life in America. The greatest praise I have for this book is that it has inspired me to read more about the real history of America and that is something few other books have done.

The best parts of American Nomads are the prologue and the final chapter. In between is an uneven collection of historical pieces and contemporary character profiles.

In the prologue, Richard Grant, an Englishman who grew up in London, tells how he traveled as a child and as an adult to sunny spots all over the world. Consequently, when he found himself spending yet another depressing winter in dreary, damp London, he scraped together enough money for a ticket to the U.S. He hooked up with east coast friends and they made a road trip to Los Angeles, but Grant wasn't through with the road yet. He traveled up the California coast, then to New Orleans, and when he ran out of money, he lived in his car in a parking lot at a motel and spent his days by the motel pool, writing letters home.

The recipients of these letters encouraged him to write for publication and he did. When he had enough money, he'd return to the U.S., then home to London when the money ran out, to write some more stories and articles. Then back to America. Finally he was making enough from writing that he didn't have to return to London.

Grant writes of the American Southwest, its history, people he meets, things he sees. A lot of his narrative is gritty, because the desert is like that, as are the people who settle there.

He winds up these travel essays with a chapter on the caravaners who congregate in Quartzsite, Arizona every year. Thousands of mostly retired people in their motor homes and trailers gather in a gigantic ghetto in the middle of nowhere. Grant observes and comments.

Well researched and written, I don't read many books more than once but this is so interesting and wide ranging, really worth buying for anyone interested in nomadic and travelling life in america

Wonderful book. Delicate and personal. Very interesting insight into the lives of people who live rather outside the 9 to 5.

This book is a fascinating and highly enjoyable read, I've already read it twice and will no doubt read it again. It's well-researched, quite epic in it's historical range, full of snippets of information that were new and very interesting to me and, to top it off, it's as much of a page-turner as any great fictional novel. Love it!

A great read. The author brings his own experience into a wider study of wanderlust and non-conformity amongst the invisible strand of the American underclass that ebb's and flows like a tide across the plains of America.A rich and satisfying work, well worth the purchase price.

This book is so disappointing.
I came to this after watching a television program he made recently shown on UK TV.
Frankly this book is boring, and almost reads as a re-hash of a University Thesis.. The book is just full of anecdotes of "nomadic journeys" made centuries ago, and has nothing to say about modern mankind.
The TV film was mildly interesting, but this book is just a waste of money. One of the worse books to come across my desk