The Continent I Lost

After years of claiming that I would pick up a Bill Bryson book, I have finally made good on my promise. 

The romantics would say that this timing is impeccable - that it was a mixture of bookworm fate and traveler’s destiny, and all of the stalling had led to this precise moment: just weeks after my latest disappearance from the confines of the United States, I encountered a copy of The Lost Continent on a friend’s bookshelf. Feeling that it was about time to get down to business, I asked to borrow the book and began to gorge myself on one of Bryson’s ex-pat tales. 

Personally, I’m more of a realist than a romantic. I can can find an array of reasons for the postponement of this particular moment in my life: over the course of the past seven or so years (since I might have first encountered the name Bill Bryson), I have been waylaid by school, work, other books, romantic entanglements, Netflix marathons, wine hangovers, naps and general laziness - to name a few. It is not my belief that destiny plays any role in our lives, and certainly not when it comes to our fictional meanderings. 

No matter how you think I got here, I am here nonetheless. It is undeniably fitting that I have begun reading this, “suave, sarcastic and very funny”* travel novel now, as Bryson’s account of his cross-country expedition mirrors my previous experiences of returning stateside; likely, it will also echo any midlife American road trip I may find myself on in the years to come. I would be surprised if I didn’t follow a similar path and eventually find myself rambling down interstates, highways and country back roads for a week or two. 

One day I will, no doubt, crave the feel of potholes beneath my tires and relish in the chance to scare the bejesus out of unwitting motorhome drivers (“That’ll teach you to take a building on vacation,” I muttered uncharitably, and hoped that something heavy had fallen on his wife in the back.), and when that day comes, I’ll have Bryson’s commentary to reflect upon. 

I might opt for the words “crass”, “truthful” and “slightly-hyperbolic” in lieu the aforementioned adjectives, but the sentiment is comparable. Reading through Bryson’s account of my previous places of habitation, I am reminded of how diverse and entrancing America can be, and yet also how desperately depressing and self-centered that isolated nation truly is. 

Last week I was driving through London with my cousin when he asked me if reading The Lost Continent made me nostalgic for “home”. Without thinking, I responded by saying, “No. It has cemented the feeling that I made the right decision [in leaving].” Bryson’s words remind me that I was never meant to become a permanent fixture of the American landscape, but rather a passerby whose story stretches miles beyond the Long Island Sound or even the balmy California coastline. 

Like Bryson, I abandoned America for the rain-soaked island of England. Unlike Bryson, this was my first home, and I intend it to be my last. With any luck, impermanent-but-elongated stays in exotic lands will whisk me away from these shores every now and again. But, for now, I have simply returned “home”. 

* Excerpt from the Sunday Telegraph’s review of The Lost Continent, which I pilfered shamelessly from the book’s back cover.

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If that stellar piece of writing didn’t encourage you to pick up a Bill Bryson paperback, let me share a few carefully-chosen lines from The Lost Continent. Perhaps these will whet your appetite for a mockery-laden account of one of Bryson’s many intriguing travel adventures. 

On Connecticut, my home-state:

“New England states are indubitably tiny - Connecticut is only eighty miles across… Connecticut appeared to be just one suburb…Litchfield itself was very handsome, the quintessential New England town, with an old courthouse and a long sloping green with a cannon and a memorial to the war dead.”

“Soon I was in the suburbs of Hartford, and then in Hartford itself, and then in the suburbs on the other side of Hartford. And then I was in Rhode Island. I stopped beside a sign saying WELCOME TO RHODE ISLAND and stared at the map. Was that really all there was to Connecticut? I considered turning back and having another sweep across the state.”

On Gettysburg, where I studied for four years and absolutely never got into any shenanigans: 

“I went outside and had a look at the battlefield…fringed by the town of Gettysburg with its gas stations and motels…You had to take their word for it that a great battle was fought there. There were a lot of cannons scattered about, I’ll give them that.” 

“It is a pity, verging on criminal, that so much of the town of Gettysburg has been spoiled with tourist tat and that it is so visible from the battlefield…I found it difficult to summon any real excitement for the place.” 

On Philadelphia, my post-college home: 

“When it comes to asinine administration, Philadelphia is in a league of its own…When a state official named Bud [sic] Dwyer was similarly accused of corruption, he called a press conference, pulled out a gun and, as cameras rolled, blew his brains out. This led to an excellent local joke. 

Q:What is the difference between Bud [sic] Dwyer and Bud Lite?

A: Bud Lite has a head on it.”

Yet for all its incompetence and criminality, Philadelphia is a likable place…”

On rampant-yet-playful ignorance:

“Say, where do you come from anyway, honey?”

I didn't feel like giving her my whole life story, so I just said, "Great Britain."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, honey," she said, "for a foreigner you speak English real good."

On general life lessons and the harsh reality of growing up:

"Afterwards, lying awake in the hot hotel room, listening to the restless city, I tried to understand the adult world and could not. I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted...But now, on this one important evening of my life, I had discovered that if you didn't measure up in some critical way, people might shoot you in the head or make you take your food out to the car."

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Finally, for those of you who hail from New York state, not New York City, and are sick and tired of explaining the difference, here’s a meme just for you.