Hunting Mister Heartbreak

Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • An exhilarating, often deliciously funny and "beautifully written voyage of discovery" (Chicago Tribune) that is at once a travelogue, a social history, and a love letter to America. • From the bestselling, award-winning author of Bad Land In 1782 an immigrant with the high-toned name J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur—"Heartbreak" in English—wrote a pioneering account of one European's transformation into an American. Some two hundred years later Jonathan Raban, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, arrived in Crèvecoeur's wake to see how America has paid off for succeeding generations of newcomers. In the course of Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Raban passes for homeless in New York and tries to pass for a good ol' boy in Alabama (which entails "renting" an elderly black lab). He sees the Protestant work ethic perfected by Korean immigrants in Seattle—one of whom celebrates her new home as "So big! So green! So wide-wide-wide!"—and repudiated by the lowlife of Key West. And on every page of this peerlessly observant work, Raban makes us experience America with wonder, humor, and an unblinking eye for its contradictions.