A long-lost literary masterpiece that Damon Runyon called “a story of a curious American scene, packed around a drama with an astonishing climax. Read it if you want a thrill.”
This is the raw story of a lonely New Jersey highway and the people who travel it: the New Yorkers escaping to their country homes, the hard-scrabble shopkeepers, farmers and their families who live in the small, drive-by communities along the asphalt, and finally the wanderers who live on wheels, eat and drink at roadhouses, and sleep where-ever they stop when night falls…and with anyone willing, warm and desperate enough to share their beds.
“A swell story, and adds to Ward Greene’s rapidly increasing stature among the novelists of the United States. We can’t reconcile the intimate knowledge he displays with any idea that it may be based on hearsay. Greene writes as an eyewitness…a natural instinct for absorbing the testimony of others. The language is real. He makes people talk like people.” Damon Runyon
“Greene’s use of plot is ingenious, and he has created memorable men and women. They seem so real that one cares tremendously what happens to them. The story has punch, and moves along at a rapid pace.” Buffalo News
“Greene has a talent for writing excitingly of everyday people. His dialog is especially good, it is humorous and philosophical and expresses the personalities of the characters with a naturalness that is seldom encountered in books.” For Worth Star Telegram
“For years, Ward Greene has been doing amazing things with words. He has depicted the heights and depths of human emotion with uncanny skill.” Tucson Citizen
Ward Greene /
Historical, Literary Reference
