America

[EmptySeraph]

I've found the mood transmitted by Kerouac in his ridiculously famous ''On the Road'' rather delightful, and I decided to look into other books that speak about traveling across the USA. Books that include Route 66, ghost towns, drugs, cheap whores, sex, trucks, alcohol intoxication, wanton violence, burgers, hot dogs (well aware of their German origins), doughnuts with their cops, insalubrious bars, dilapidated motels, shotguns, sheriffs, filthy roadside diners, rain, storms, desertic landscapes, sunglasses, jeans, convertibles with the adjacent music and local geographical perfume etc. etc.

Do you know any books that include the aforementioned things? Any book redolent of the (stereotyped) American spirit?

[Danik 2016]

The Motorcycle Diaries by a certain Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, as the young doctor, who later became famous as Che Guevara, was known when he made a motorcycle tour with a friend through several countries of South America. The book belongs to the "road movie" genre, but furnishes some different elements as autobiographic information on the pre revolutionary Che and a dive into Spanish South America.
There is also the film of the same name by director Walter Salles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mo...Diaries_(book)

[EmptySeraph]

But in all fairness, South America has little to do with the United States and their charm.
(I want to say the type of charm, as I know that the Latin America is magic in its own right, but I'm looking for a more mundane kind of magic, an American one)

[Danik 2016]

The problem is that for you America=US. That´s rather restricted.
America, American and American spirit have more than one meaning.
Well, I suppose you will receive other suggestions.

[chrisvia]

I'm not sure about specifically road-trip themes that convey all of this (US) Americana. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind, but it only comprises half of the US and isn't as concerned with a lot of the underbelly Americana you listed. Pynchon has done a good job of chronicling a lot of this. And perhaps Hunter S. Thompson.