Lost in America

Aug 31, 2011 Robert Costa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Colby Buzzell, wittingly or not, has not only crafted a lasting piece of work, he's also succeeded in setting a brilliantly disguised snare in which even advanced readers will be trapped. Let the simple high school book report regurgitations begin! From the reviews of Lost in America that I've read to date, not a single person has escaped that deadly snare which is, without cunning, hidden in plain sight. He offers the casual reader nothing but starkly naked self-deprecating truths which are irr...more Colby Buzzell, wittingly or not, has not only crafted a lasting piece of work, he's also succeeded in setting a brilliantly disguised snare in which even advanced readers will be trapped. Let the simple high school book report regurgitations begin! From the reviews of Lost in America that I've read to date, not a single person has escaped that deadly snare which is, without cunning, hidden in plain sight. He offers the casual reader nothing but starkly naked self-deprecating truths which are irresistible bait … as in a bait car ... the kind the police use to trap dimwitted thieves.

He even commits a technical sin right at the book’s outset by telling the hapless what they are about to be told … and why .... then, amazingly, they (based upon the reviews thus far I’ve read) actually believe that’s what the story is all about. They (reviewers) seem to believe that they also actually understand Buzzell (makes me chuckle) and might have even wondered to themselves why they were reading what painfully seems to be nothing more than an unremarkable discovery journal of yet another barfly with writer’s itch. Several reviewers I noticed followed that second blind path. For crying out loud, he even tells you it’s a dead end journey right in the title and you still didn’t get it. Here's a hint ... once you think the work is about him, or mimicking Kerouac, or his unpolished skills, or his near trance inducing laconic style, or his excessive drinking or obsession with seedy hotels and cigarettes or vintage anything or even his dark fascination with fill-in-the-blank underbelly of wherever ... you've been snared and the book really has no further use of you. If you’ll recall when he casually flicks his cigarette ash on the carpet while enjoying some wine straight from the bottle in his dirtbag hotel room … that’s his opinion of your perspective. Granted, he would probably be much kinder about telling you such.

Concisely, this true tale well told can be summed up in a single word: deception. And the elimination thereof. More specifically … self deception at the individual level as well as the collective … families, groups, races, communities and most startling … as a nation. You’re all in denial to one extent or another and nowhere near as brave as you should be about confronting your own frailty and failures. Disgree? Who in the hell among you has the will to drive U.S. 50 alone … through the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, for mile upon tedious mile piloting a 45 year old original unrestored condition Mercury not even knowing when it will break down next or where the next gas station might be let alone whether or not the person sitting behind the wheel of the next set of headlights that comes up behind you might be a serial killer. Quite frankly, you don’t have the balls to do it … nor the courage to be ultimately real about who you are and why. Like most of us, you deceive. You deceive yourself and you deceive others around you. You closet your failures and hide your frailties and shun the less fortunate. You run from the problem, not toward the solution. You wrap yourself in the high R value insulation of deception. Let’s face it, you’re not even you anymore … just something or someone that you pass off as you more often than not. Genuine article … my ass. America the beautiful ? America the Superpower? You’ve screwed those up too. You think Buzzell is a screw up? Think again sport, and this time, actually read the book.

Buzzell shows you how it’s done …. stripping you of your ever growing menagerie of mascara, hair mousse, photoshopped pictures, fake facebook friends, teeth whiteners, your new Prius, your diploma (insert alma mater of distinction here) your (insert impressive inch size here) flatscreen TV that you got on sale at Walmart (or some other soulless big box store), your latest (please don’t bore us with the pictures) vacation, whatever. You’re such a phony. Using himself as the foil, he disturbingly reveals your core undeniable weaknesses. His alcohol problem is your shopping problem, or porn problem, or you name it problem. You want to escape, but cannot. He wanted to escape too. Beginning to get it? The only solution you have is to continue the adventure even though you know it’s in large part just a charade … a dead-end journey. His wanderlust my ass … it’s your wanderlust and you’ve always had it. His indulgences? I think not, they’re yours and you’ve always had them … you just don’t have the nerve to put them on display and deal with them. His unadulterated self-deprecation is genuine and dazzlingly unique. More genuine than perhaps you’ve ever been, even momentarily, in your entire life, even with yourself. It’s mundane, in parts, because you are … everyone is now and then, if not mostly. Crushingly real. In fact, this book is the equivalent of what reality TV would be … if it were actually real, or interesting, or redeeming.

Ready for more reality? No problem. Most adults are primarily fear based motivated. Deterrence is very powerful and risk mitigation makes the world go around. Fundamentally, it’s game theoretical in that you’re strategically incentivized to mitigate risk in response to ever present fears. The beauty of his character, who fortunately or unfortunately for you is not a fictional one, is that he is the exception. He doesn’t have the fear of exposure and is riddled with flaws. He isn’t necessarily sharing his flaws, he’s helping you discover and understand yours. When that bird hits his windshield in the book … that was the person that you refused to help even though you should have. When he stands alone as a stranger at a backyard party in a Detroit neighborhood where revival is underway … that’s you who snubbed him, you pompous self-absorbed asshole. When he expertly mocks the Columbia School of Journalism graduates at the Time Magazine's Green Zone (what a joke, who reads that drivel) house, his magnifying glass of truth has you and your practically worthless college degree in (fill in your college major here please) from wherever (because they're all diploma mills now - only the few escape with a real education and a corresponding degree of merit that might be useful to a nation in atrophy) squarely upon you. Sure, your parents are proud of you, but they also congratulated you the first time you successfully took a sh*t. Layer upon layer, one seemingly innocuous scene after another, he flays the human psyche wide open, refusing to blush. Only once does he himself turn away, when looking at his own reflection in a dark BART tunnel after privately grieving to his now dead and thus silent mother. His secret shame at that moment is a shame you’ve felt. Say you haven’t and you’re either a liar or a fool … or both. His mother is everyone’s beloved mother … or should be. Her broken English advice is simple, timeless and undeniable. Veritable pearls cast before you know-it-all swine. Dammit, if only Buzzell had listened … if only you were listening now.

He offers more unassailable kernels of truth …. such as Middle Easterner shopkeepers who (accustomed to violent conflict as a daily way of life) have come to Detroit and will only work behind protective glass as juxtapositioned against an aging white couple (the Harrington’s) who run a shabby inner city hotel in crime central and consider it an insult to themselves and those around them to do the same (protective glass) even though they’ve been mugged and beaten several times. Go ahead, we’re all American … you take your pick. Who are you? Chicken shit.

Pick any chapter and you’ll find yourself, if you dare. Go ahead, read the chapter on Unsuccessful Men with Talent and tell yourself that the content doesn’t parallel your own life at some point at one time or another. Yeah right … you coulda’ been a contender.

So, you selfish and lazy little bitch/prick, do you really want to know how badly we’re screwing each other while insisting we’re not the problem and that somebody needs to fix this mess we’re in here in America? OK, here you go. Try chapter sixteen, Sunday Stripper. It’s no secret that heterosexual men dig women and will always look at nude or semi-nude women ... even ugly ones. Women and alcohol ... think cocktail. Buzzell was there (strip club) for the only reason anyone goes to a strip club. Get real, it's the same reason you or your husband/boyfriend does. Because he (Buzzell) is your husband/boyfriend, he offers an incredibly lame excuse for being there that he thinks is plausible …. which of course, is not. More strikingly, he offers the instant classic line “It was like they all (the strippers) had given up on trying to get money from the men, and the men had given up in giving a shit”. Jesus H … men were born to look at and pay for (we all pay for it one way or another) it. Hopes and dreams pulverized into granules too tiny to reconstruct. We’re that pathetic … we’re all wrapped so tight right now, captivated by fear, waiting for the media to buzz us with the next round of OMG doom. I'm guessing you don't tip very well and if you do still donate to charity, it’s probably only when other people are sure to notice and in no instance will you help a person of color … directly anyway. Oh, and let me guess, you’ve read enough local newspaper articles to know when a panhandler doesn’t really need the money. As for homeless or at-risk vets, you totally suck. They earned your freedom, many died for it, and you have never reciprocated sufficiently. You got yours. I hear you loud and clear brother. F-you.

Seriously smart readers will someday “get” this book and when they do, legions of Wayfarer wearing wannabes will venture forth to breathe in Buzzell’s smoky essence in places like the Kum & Go gas station in Cheyenne and the Park Avenue Hotel in Detroit and elsewhere. With any luck, he’ll ignore every urge to revisit the landscape he’s so deftly captured. Its stark simplicity is its splendor and it stands as a perfect post-modern reflection of an imperfect America disintegrating before our very own eyes … and at our very own hands.

His fantasy escape is like most all others ... usually not an effective strategy, but an alluring form of self-deception. Homer created the category with Odysseus a few thousand years back. Conveniently, the name Odysseus is greek for trouble and Buzzell is extremely faithful in trying to find such at every possible turn of his journey. Roadtrips are an excuse, a vehicle, .... its a deceptively (wink) simple premise. My dear political friends, that includes Mr. Barack Obama and his country criss-crossing, campaign barnstorming, town halling road trip that touted the miracle elixir of change. Get real, you knew it was a stretch. He was the safe, unoffensive, smart one even if he is a little haughty. Ah yes, risk aversion, that sounds familiar. It’s not his fault, it’s yours. You bought it, then you fought it noting that it's pretty clear nobody was going to come out a winner regardless of who was elected. Seriously, being the President is difficult under the best of conditions. Without rancor though, Buzzell lets us know that even coal black Detroit isn’t buying the Obama snakeoil anymore which is good news because the Motor City, at least according to the book by Buzzell that I read, is moving on … no longer in denial or begging for a handout. We all need to move on. The Detroit in the book that I read is not a desolate wasteland. It’s picking itself off the canvas, wielding self-reliance, threatening the spectre of despair with person by person determination and savvy resourcefulness. A body doesn’t recover from blows like Detroit took quickly. They won’t be down forever, not that sweat, not that muscle, not that American pride. Those people work, they need to be led, but they will wear the yoke. Detroit is nothing if not our call of duty. The great American story has always been that there is another shot, a comeback, a chance at redemption, a new start. Like any 12 step or self-improvement program, you’ve got to get past the deception first, then you’ve got to put some skin in the game.

A gritty and dark brooding tale of a boozing loser frequenting flophouses who ends up in a rundown rustbelt town? … maybe to a Time Magazine reader. The book that I read is a two-way mirror with a polarized film coating to block out all of your double secret bullshit rationalizations. You just need to step around to the other side and see what the naked truth really looks like … if you think you can handle it. If so, smile, perhaps there is hope for you yet.
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Oct 18, 2011 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was drawn in by this author's open and real conversation with himself. Despite the use of the "f" word rather much at the beginning, I continued to read and could feel an authentic person talking from the heart. His heart and experiences seemed much different than mine but strangely familiar. His choices in life of places and daily activities were alien to me but the openness of his dialog was at once revealing, cogent, and truthful and at the same time, strangely heartwarming. As the author p...more

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Aug 24, 2011 cheryl added it

I love that reading for Harper let's me explore outside my usual fiction rules. I don't read a ton of memoirs but was very intrigued by Colby Buzzell's Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey. The Iraq war vet who had recently lost his mother and had his first child (the former gets a lot more discussion in the text), sets out with the instruction to live a modern-day On The Road. With a few interruptions, he travels in an old car, focusing on towns tourists tend to skip, back-roads, and less-than-s...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Georgette rated it 3 of 5 stars

Colby Buzzell is feeling overwhelmed. He's just lost his mother to cancer and become a father for the first time. In a moment of insight brought on by repeated readings of ON THE ROAD, he decides he needs to get away from everything(yes, despite the fact that he's a new father). He feels the need to find himself again by traveling America's byways and backways. He does just that, going from San Francisco's Tenderloin district to Denver to the frightening goal posts thrown at him by Des Moines, I...more Colby Buzzell is feeling overwhelmed. He's just lost his mother to cancer and become a father for the first time. In a moment of insight brought on by repeated readings of ON THE ROAD, he decides he needs to get away from everything(yes, despite the fact that he's a new father). He feels the need to find himself again by traveling America's byways and backways. He does just that, going from San Francisco's Tenderloin district to Denver to the frightening goal posts thrown at him by Des Moines, Iowa(where they have four boxes of people "banned" from the city; Buzzell isn't even allowed to check into the hotel until they make sure he isn't banned!), to the lonely existence of Omaha, Nebraska, to the unknown-of-job mecca that is Cheyenne, Wyoming(I'm not joking). Of all the places he visits, I have to say the chapter that amused me and intrigued me the most was Detroit, Michigan. You hear Detroit nowadays, you think of the hit they've taken with the automobile industry collapsing inwards. However, Colby manages to paint Detroit with a golden paintbrush, making you aware just how hard-working and fighting the residents are, taking hit after hit in this economical downturn and still managing to keep a positive attitude and never giving up. He also finds himself completely swept up in the architecture that used to be a part of Detroit's charm, and you find yourself saddened that much of it is gone or on a list to be razed at a later date, most of the time for condos that most residents were loath to afford. Detroit, by far, impressed me(as well as Buzzell, who at one point calls his wife and asks her if they can sell their house and MOVE to Detroit permanently, which is, of course, vetoed.) more than many of the other spots he ended up at in his sojourn. Along with Colby's musings and observations of the towns he goes through, he also looks for-and lands- a job in just about every town, and that's another amusing sidenote- he works at a list of amusing jobs- construction, an ice cream truck vendor(that's a great chapter, hillarious when you think to yourself that you've never considered ice cream truck vendor as a high-risk job, until this chapter.), and his favorite- working at the Salvation Army.
All in all, a great little trip through America's Dust Bowl country, and a great little book as well. (less)

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Aug 14, 2011 Mscout rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: free-from-publisher, biography, memoir

Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey is Colby Buzzell’s response to his publisher’s pitch to update an American classic. Instructed to “retrace Kerouac’s footsteps and paint a contemporary portrait of America” and to write “a love letter to Kerouac”, Buzzell wholeheartedly agrees and immediately cashes the advance check. And also immediately lets the reader know “Like hell I am.” This is no homage to Kerouac or classic American literature.

The book opens with a quote from Kurt Cobain and each succ...more Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey is Colby Buzzell’s response to his publisher’s pitch to update an American classic. Instructed to “retrace Kerouac’s footsteps and paint a contemporary portrait of America” and to write “a love letter to Kerouac”, Buzzell wholeheartedly agrees and immediately cashes the advance check. And also immediately lets the reader know “Like hell I am.” This is no homage to Kerouac or classic American literature.

The book opens with a quote from Kurt Cobain and each succeeding chapter opens with yet another in the same nihilistic vein. Very little of the book has to do with the trip Buzzell took across the country. It is more of a travel guide on his road to some semblance of grown-up life as well as a meditation on family. Twin earthquakes struck in quick succession: his mother’s death and his son’s birth. He chose to delay the trip for the first, but not the second. Buzzell remarked on several occasions that he needed to find the plot. Where would the book go? What was the hook? It is easy to see and surmise that this applied to his life as well as to the writing assignment.

For all intents and purposes, the six-month trip ended in Detroit. For Buzzell, this city is Ground Zero for the disaffected and disowned. Suicide is mentioned more than once, and one could argue that his actions in Detroit were a form of passively attempting such. He also used the city to draw a parallel between Kerouac’s Beat Generation and today’s beat down generation. He repeatedly referred to the city, the buildings and occupants as looking as though they had recently suffered a scud missile attack.

Ostensibly travelling across the country looking for and working odd jobs, Buzzell spent a great deal of the book drinking, drunk or hung over. It is hard to imagine that this is the approach someone would take if they were actually trying to pay the rent. In some ways, he’s a very unlikable character. It’s not just the alcohol; this world does that to people. It’s not that he ran from his responsibilities; many have run far further from far less. Perhaps it’s his constant over-justification. A common theme throughout the book is his lack of self-confidence, yet he seems absolutely confident, righteous even, in justifying his actions. None of this makes Lost in America a bad book. After all, America loves her villains almost as much as she loves her heroes.

Available 23 August 2011
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Oct 27, 2011 Mir rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed Buzzell's first book: 'My War: Killing Time in Iraq'. He writes with gritty realism that kept me spellbound throughout most of that book. After he came from Iraq, he suffered from PTSD, but kept writing articles for various mags, including Esquire. So when he came out with book #2, I eagerly snatched it up. Things seemed to have improved for him by now, this book details part of his journey back to a 'normal life'. He still writes evocatively about his Mom, his family and his st...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Nina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Buzzell bought a classic car and set out from his home in San Francisco to drive across America with no specific destination. He chose seedy hotels and even seedier bars on his journey. He apparently alternated between being drunk and hung over. The book opens with the illness and death of his mother, and closes with a description of his son's birth. Both events set this journey of discovery in motion.

Buzzell explores and photographs once magnificent buildings, now abandone and decrepit. These b...more

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Oct 06, 2011 Matthew Fife added it

I received this book from one of the free give-aways, and to be perfectly honest, I thoroughly enjoyed it, mostly. I could have lived without the frequent use of curse words, quite happily actually, but I understand the reason for it.

This book chronicles Mr. Buzzell's journey through America, and the journey within himself, as he floats from place to place, working when he could, moving on when he couldn't. He writes about his experiences interacting with every-day Americans as they fight to mak...more I received this book from one of the free give-aways, and to be perfectly honest, I thoroughly enjoyed it, mostly. I could have lived without the frequent use of curse words, quite happily actually, but I understand the reason for it.

This book chronicles Mr. Buzzell's journey through America, and the journey within himself, as he floats from place to place, working when he could, moving on when he couldn't. He writes about his experiences interacting with every-day Americans as they fight to make ends meet, so that they, too, can live the American Dream (well, the new American dream).

The parts I found most interesting had almost nothing to do with his physical journey. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the interactions with some of the more colorful characters along the way, from Wyoming to Detroit, and everything before and in between. Those interactions gave the story an anchor, something that let you know that you were in fact reading something that had a beginning and an end. They helped illustrate that in the world there are good people, bad people, and people that are just trying to do their best to make ends meet in the current American economy. What I loved was seeing the change that took place in Mr. Buzzell because of his journey and because of the people he met.

But beware, you have to be very patient to see any sign of change. In fact, if you don't read the last couple of pages you miss it altogether. But because you travel with him to all the shady motels, to all the bars, to all the abandoned buildings of Detroit, you can look back and see how each experience played a part, and those are the stories that I love. Without the personal side notes, without the stories about his mother, without all of that sort of stuff, this book would have been terrible. It would have just been a "These are the places not to go on vacation" sort of book, or a "Stay away from any place that remotely resembles this sort of place if you value your personal safety and the health of your children, born and unborn" book. But combined with all the different aspects of the narration, this book is actually touching.

If I had to classify this book, I would say it was more coming-of-age than travelogue, and even that is hard to say. It's about how and why he became who he wanted to be.

Granted, I could be completely wrong, but that's what I got from it. If you won't burn the book because of all the swearing and the acts of dubious morality, then I recommend this book to you. If any of those offend you, I would recommend against it.(less)

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Aug 17, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: america, memoir, non-fiction, travel

Colby Buzzell, an Iraq war veteran with PTSD who’s had a memoir published and written a lot for assorted magazines and the like, was commissioned to take a road trip across the US and write, quote-unquote, a “love letter to Kerouac”. These plans were rather hampered by real life in the form of his mother’s terminal illness and the impending birth of his son. The book opens with a series of false starts as Buzzell, conflicted, uncertain and most likely in denial as to the true state of his mother...more Colby Buzzell, an Iraq war veteran with PTSD who’s had a memoir published and written a lot for assorted magazines and the like, was commissioned to take a road trip across the US and write, quote-unquote, a “love letter to Kerouac”. These plans were rather hampered by real life in the form of his mother’s terminal illness and the impending birth of his son. The book opens with a series of false starts as Buzzell, conflicted, uncertain and most likely in denial as to the true state of his mother’s health, postpones the planned start of his trip, with the result that he then ends up setting off right after his son is born. All this gives us some context as to why (in addition to the PTSD) our author may be a little all over the place. How’s the guy supposed to concentrate on writing a North American travelogue while he’s weeks into new fatherhood and trying to mourn his mother at the same time? A few reviewers have laid into Buzzell for this, but I’ll refrain from doing so. It’s irrelevant, it’s none of my damned business, and besides, I have no idea how much he may have been depending on his book advance to support his new family. The guy is also extremely upfront about it, so, really, move along, there’s no “Runaway Road Trip Douche-Dad” scandal here. Were he still in the military there’s every chance he’d have been deployed thousands of miles away before/during/after the birth of his son and received all kinds of support, so a little less judgment would be nice here.

OK, where was I? Ah yes. Once he finally gets going, Buzzell pretty much stumbles across the North American continent, drifting from town to town in search of… something. It’s as if there is some kind of plot here, some kind of narrative, but Buzzell has no idea what or where it might be and just doesn’t have it in him at this point to find the thread. So what we get is him driving until he’s sick of driving and low on gas, then pulling up in some random and often unnamed town. At this point he’ll check into the nearest hotel that meets the criteria of being a) cheap and b) not part of a cookie-cutter chain, then, for want of anything better to do, heading straight to the first dive bar he can find and getting drunk. Very drunk. He’ll spend a while in some of the places he stops off at, doing a bit of day labor here and there and drinking during his off-duty (and even on-duty) hours, finally realizing there’s nothing for him there, at which point he’ll hit the road in search of more of the same.

All this paints a very bleak picture of the places Buzzell travels through, but you know what? I wouldn’t mind betting it’s a truthful one. People are broke. There’s not much work. What work there is is badly-paid. There’s precious little optimism to go around, and life pretty much sucks. Sure, there are other, more heartwarming and poignant stories to be told, but at this point, Buzzell is not the guy to be telling them. You can tell the author is pretty damned depressed and feeling utterly directionless, it comes across with painful clarity in his writing. He’s genuinely lost in America, and the America he's travelling through feels pretty lost too. He doesn’t know where to go and it seems like there really is nowhere to go. He doesn’t seek out the ‘good’ places to present to the reader, instead he gravitates naturally towards the hopeless and the lost and the misfits. I get the impression that the first half of the book is about Buzzell despairing as to how he’s ever going to write a book, and what it’s going to be about.

At which point our decrepit hero rolls up in Detroit, and everything somehow falls into place. From what I can make out, he falls in love with the city almost at first sight. He checks into a non-chain hotel, just like he does everywhere else, but this place is special. Buzzell describes the hotel and its owners in such a way that I almost want to go and find it, and move in. It’s run by an old couple who seem to regard each and every one of their guests as part of their extended family, treating them with the kind of solicitousness you’d expect them to reserve for wayward grandchildren rather than paying boarders. Once set up in the hotel, Buzzell sets out to explore as much of Detroit as he possibly can, gravitating as though compelled by some perverse deathwish straight towards all the neighborhoods that his worried hosts beg him to steer clear of. He also whips out his camera and for the first time during his trip, feels inclined to really document what’s around him.

I would like to read more from this author. I like the glimpses we get into his head, the observations he throws out there, his sense of humor and his sardonic way of looking at things. The second half of Lost in America makes the whole thing worthwhile. I’ve never been to Detroit and must confess to knowing next to nothing about the place, but came away from reading this book wanting to take a trip up there and find out what it’s really like. I found myself staying up late into the night reading about the locations Buzzell had visited and looking at endless photos of the city, both in its heyday and now in its state of extreme decline. Colby Buzzell, you ought to consider addressing your next love letter to Detroit. I think it would be beautiful.(less)

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Sep 29, 2011 RYCJ rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dynamic-reads

I thought Buzzell's memoir was a self-discovery calling. The delivery… the gentle, melodious tone in the face of honestly parting with thoughts and feelings was very well captured. I empathized with him describing what being a loner felt like, and thus easily understood how a young man already lost in this isolated space, who’d experienced IRAQ and losing his mother, would not be prepared to manage family. I vigilantly rooted for a satisfying... which I cannot give away. Overall, well done!

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Oct 04, 2011 Boozy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, military, non-fiction, philosophy, sociology

Initially i wasn't real sure about this, I wouldnt say that this is anything like kerouac, nor his previous pieces regarding the war. As for a trip across the US, i found it somewhat disjointed, although his observations were interesting they didnt really say to much about the US as a whole, it seemed to be a snapshot of a small subsection of America. I did find that the authors willingness to discuss his loss of his mother as well as how well articulated it was to be superb, i highly applaud it...more

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Sep 10, 2011 ben rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was an interesting book about a war veterans journey across the seemy side of America. My favorite parts were how Detroit was described. Since I have no plans to go explore downtown Detroit at this time thank you to the author to tell me about it. Colby Buzzell has the courage to become part of the America that no one wants to think about. He does find good in people that would scare me.

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Sep 27, 2011 Codymarie Greene` rated it 4 of 5 stars

Maybe it's because I'm around the same age, grew up in the same area, and have had or have friends/family that have had similar life experiences but, this is was great. I love the sarcastic humor, intentional or not and this story, memoir has touched a nerve in me.

I've read that some readers say that it has the feel of a high school report, and yes at times it does but, it's an honest look at the state of our country that few have had the voice to announce. It's a candid look at a man caught be...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Devan Lipsey rated it 4 of 5 stars

I always enjoy a good travelogue and this was well done. I liked the fact the author didn't force himself from place to place just to fill the book (in fact spending most of the time in one place). There is good insight into how the working poor are struggling further deepening my cynicism unfortunately. I'll be interested to see the author's next book.

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Aug 19, 2012 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

At times, this was a difficult book to read because of the author's experiences in "lost" cities in current America. However, it is worth reading for a real feel for what is going on in recession America in hard hit cities like Detroit. [My young adult daughter recommended this book to me which also inspired me to keep reading.]

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Jan 01, 2012 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: quality_writing

A raw and gritty trip across the country, showing a side of the US that I don't have much experience with. My favorite parts were the powerful description of dealing with loss in the first chapter, and the section exploring Detroit towards the end of the book.

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Oct 13, 2011 Talkingtocactus rated it 4 of 5 stars

really liked this book, it was an interesting picture of america as things are today, from an interesting perspective. i thought the writer talked a lot of sense, and so did many of the ordinary people he met on the way. plus it was funny, nicely written and quite touching in parts too :)

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Nov 14, 2011 Karen Wilson rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book capitalizes on the premise that everyone has a story, if you just take the time to talk to them and get to know them a little. Mr. Buzzell does that, and is nice enough to pass it along. Technically good also, especially since this was an uncorrected proof copy. The plot left this reader wondering how his wife lets him leave her for such a long time! I find it sad that he is more interested in meeting street people in Detroit than spending time with his wife and son. However, that's hi...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: travel, advanced-readers-copy

Please see review on Amazon.com as part of the vine program.

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Jul 11, 2011 Steven Powell rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very dark portrait of america. factotum on the road.

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Mar 30, 2012 Squeaky rated it 3 of 5 stars

I need to call my mother and tell her I love her.

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Oct 29, 2011 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

I won this book through GoodReads and must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Colby Buzzell was open and honest about his journey and struggles with humanity. If you don't think going to war impacts the human psyche, I highly recommend this book. I think we can all identify with periods in our life where we struggle and feel lost, but these feelings are much more intense and severe for Colby.

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Aug 31, 2011 Michael Sweeney rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Mrs. Obama took a sh%t on this toilet?" ... you kill me.

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Aug 22, 2011 Kimberly marked it as to-read

Won this book, watching the mail!!!

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Sep 26, 2011 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

A gritty, fearless and ballsy memoir. This guy goes through doors and talks to people that would terrify me. This was a quick read. And I enjoyed it at times. I found Colby to be interesting, but not necessarily likeable. I did tear up when he describes his dying mother, but for the most part, the story was repetitive and a bit dull.

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Jun 18, 2012 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Buzzell has developed a unique style, oozing with honesty. His earlier book My War: Killing Time in Iraq is also a great read.

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Jan 26, 2012 Helen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another good read by Buzzell. Plus I liked the cover art.

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May 17, 2013 Faith rated it 3 of 5 stars

May 08, 2013 Dan marked it as to-read

May 02, 2013 Peter marked it as to-read

title link	preview: Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey
avg rating	preview: Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey Goodreads rating: 3.73 (56 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11033578-lost-in-america?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1310141014l/11033578.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11033578-lost-in-america?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey by Colby Buzzell[/url]

Lost in America: A Dead-End Journey

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