Road Fever by Tim Cahill
Oddly categorized as a “travel” book, this is really more about driving. Specifically long-distance, intercontinental driving in pursuit of a world record. This entails the raising of other people’s money (aka sponsorship), registration and verification with those in charge of keeping such records, and logistics on a grand scale. Logistics of the sort that bureaucrats dream of, and want to imprint their stamps upon. In triplicate.
The record in question was driving the length of the Western Hemisphere, from Ushuaia, Argentina on Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a distance of of over 15,000 miles in twenty-three days, twenty-two hours, and forty-three minutes. The distance however was not the limiting factor on this drive so much as the logistics and sheer bureaucracy of crossing more than a dozen borders, some of them hostile. The legwork required to acquire all the permissions and paperwork is touched upon, and then the actual acts of doing it is described with humor and wit. This drive was completed in September and October of 1987 by Canadian Garry Sowerby, and the author, Tim Cahill. They beat the previous official record by weeks, and the previous unofficial record by many days, therefore earning themselves a rightful place in history. If you don’t recall the record being set you can be forgiven as the nascent 24-hour-a-day news media were wrapped up in other events. Sowerby & Cahill exhibited amazing skill, but horrific timing in that upon their arrival in the USA the news media were distracted; as they arrived in Texas for a press conference the day a toddler named Jessica fell down a well elsewhere in Texas. Their arrival at Prudoe Bay coincided with the stock market crash on “Black Monday”. Literally a year of hard work and planning, followed by a month of marathon driving, all lost in the noise of other events.
They did not announce their attempt until they arrived in the USA for fear of criminal attempts to waylay them for ransom, a genuine threat in parts of Latin America. They did let various governments know ahead of time to secure the permissions required.
The book isn’t so much a travelogue as the telling of a tale. Sketches of places and events are drawn quickly and for the most part discarded as the landscape changes constantly around them. Cahill is an excellent writer and keeps your attention going throughout, frequently generating outbursts of laughter from the reader. I sought this book out specifically for a summer read as it serves as an oversized parallel to my own little drives. I’m not looking for records, but I tend to go for distance over dallying. There is a sort of bond that develops between drivers on a long-distance jaunt that is hard to capture. Cahill does an excellent job of doing so through humor, even though many of the situations and emotions at the time are anything but humorous. My only complaint about the book was the breezy fashion in which the final third of the journey was summarized. It felt as if Cahill ran out of time or up against a publishing dealine and just Cliff’s Noted the last parts of the journey. Sure the bulk of North America represents easy driving and a lack of Latin America border crossings but there is still plenty to see and experience.
It is a breezy and enjoyable read and I highly suggest any one interested in driving for driving’s sake to give it a look.
