Route 66 Still Kicks

Submitted by dmacdonell on Wed, 2011-11-30 18:12

Route 66 Still Kicks

Driving America's Main Street

By Rick Antonson

978-1-45970-436-7
June 2012
256pp, Paperback
$26.99 CAD

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Route 66 Still Kicks is an exhilarating, heartbreaking drive down a forgotten road through unknown America. Author Rick Antonson and his travel nemesis, the inscrutable Peter, patiently journey 2,400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles through eight states seeking — and finding — all the old parts that remain of Route 66.

This travelogue blends surprising vignettes with obscure stories about Route 66–related personalities, among them Al Capone, the Harvey Girls, Salvador Dalí, Mickey Mantle, 1930s photojournalist Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), and songster Bobby Troup "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66."

Antonson's fresh perspective on the route's harsh history, its ebb and flow of popularity and viability along with America's economic and social upheavals underpaints a canvas of stories about the road's rise to fame, its segmenting by superhighways, and its fall from grace with the gazetteers — and Route 66's entrenchment in legend.