This post is also available in: French

Once the only direct road to California, an interstate highway system built in the 1950s bypassed ‘the Mother Road’ and shut off its lifeblood, forcing thousands of shops and motels into bankruptcy over the next fifty years. Between the twin pressures of harmful trade treaties and lower wages abroad, the national economy had changed as well, as entire industries began to dry up, sending a countless number of jobs to Asia and south of the border. Western-bound job seekers now bumped shoulders with Mexican immigrants heading east looking for the same. As a boy, Keating heard his mother tell stories of growing up in St. Louis near Route 66, tales of her trips to California; and of her father, the first Ford dealer in the bustling city, selling Model A’s in the teens and twenties. Therefore, it was probably fate that lead Keating to the brink on the road that no longer held the nation’s promise. Some made it across while others got stuck to the side of the road. Keating made it across.

This book is about the many who didn’t and settled wherever their bones and their broken cars dropped them.