Through a windshield darkly: Canadian writers drive in search of the American identity.

Through a windshield darkly: Canadian writers drive in search of the American identity. Breakfast at the Exit Cafe Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds Greystone Books 317 pages, hardcover ISBN 9781553655220 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A FIELD GUIDE TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN Range and Behaviour: Found from sea to sea. Tend to nest insuburban homes and highrise apartments. While abandoning city coresthroughout the continent, they can be found in big box malls shoppingfor useless trinkets to bring home to the nest. Appearance: From dangerously thin to grotesquely obese andeverything in between. Voice: Male gives a booming "thump, thump, thump" whilefemale's cry includes chattering and rattling notes. Seldom silent,given to expressing opinions forcefully. Known by Grady and Simonds as"assertive extroverts." Status: Found in varying numbers all over the world, quite often inmilitary uniform; not yet endangered. MOST CANADIANS WILL ADMIT TO considerable ambivalence in theirfeelings about America. As a former American (I became a Canadiancitizen in 1976), I share that ambivalence. A complex nation, America isalso a land riddled with contradiction. In Breakfast at the Exit Cafe anengaging travelogue by two of Canada's esteemed writers, we gain afront-seat view, literally through the windshield, of thosecontradictions. Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds begin their journey inVancouver, deciding to return to their home in eastern Ontario bydriving their Toyota Echo through America in a 15,000-kilometre U,passing through 22 states, taking in much of the western and southernand some of the eastern United States. Anglo-Canadians travelling in the U.S. gain a distinct advantageover other foreigners--they can remain completely invisible if theywish. They can travel in disguise by being careful not to say"eh" "veranda" or "chesterfield." They canchoose to reveal their foreignness, or they can easily pass asAmericans. Americans from much of the U.S. (without the Southern or EastCoast accents) have the same advantage in Canada. This allows thetraveller a unique perspective. To be inside and outside at the sametime. To take part in everyday life, seemingly, and yet have theobservational opportunities afforded to the visitor. Grady and Simonds take full advantage of these opportunities. Theyhand the pen back and forth throughout their journey, each taking a fewpages to comment on the passing scene before turning it over again tothe other. They are not recording a conversation but sitting side byside, looking out the car window, commenting on the passing scene. Thisunusual structure works surprisingly well. There is no doubt we are travelling with writers. The first twelvepages alone include references to Gary Snyder, Madame Bovary, DavidSuzuki, Alice Munro, Cicero, Emerson, John McPhee, Steinbeck, LarryMcMurtry, William Least Heat-Moon and many others. In every hick town,they stop to check out the local bookstore. As Grady says, "goodtravel is like good reading. It sucks you into a world and holds youthere." And what a complex, fascinating read America continues to be. Welearn from Grady and Simonds that profound differences exist between thenorthwest coast and California (the authors tended to avoid largecities), between the Southwest and the deep South. Nothing new in theserevelations, of course, but seeing them through the eyes of twoinsightful visitors provides an intriguingly fresh perspective. Even asour guides contemplate the differences among these regions, they notethe recurring sameness of American monoculture--ubiquitous sprawlingsuburbs and empty town cores, cookie-cutter Walmarts, identical hotelchains, throughways that could be slashing across any landscape in NorthAmerica. With this in mind, the authors tend to travel on smallerhighways and stay at rural motels, where the distinct flavours andmarkings of the local habitat and its denizens have not yet been erasedand replaced. Regionalism can cut many different ways. Although the drift ofhistory and political culture in North America tends to run east towest, there also exist "vertical countries," or pockets ofsimilarity that ignore borders. Residents of British Columbia andWashington State share many common interests and problems. Persistentrain and omnipresent Starbucks, for example. Simonds writes as they zipacross the tidal flats of the northwest that "the landscape refusesnationality." An Ohioan and an Ontarian often have more in commonwith one another, in terms of cultural identity and natural environs,than they do with an Inuit, a Newfoundlander, a Texan or a Hopi Indian.Montrealers and New Yorkers, Torontonians and Chicagoans all sharesimilar difficulties: traffic congestion, noise and air pollution,crime, high-priced real estate. They also share the same advantages:high-paying jobs, good schools, access to culture, excellent restaurantsand so on. Despite these similarities, Simonds and Grady point out thatAmericans manifest one distinct difference--many tend to remain blind tothe rest of the world, which neatly dovetails with their belief that theU.S. is the centre of the universe, the only remaining great power, theworld's saviour. Manifest destiny is still the guiding spirit ofAmerica. It is God's country, after all. Why would anyone ever wantto live anywhere else? Isn't this, they insist, not only thegreatest nation in the world, but (as I have heard it expressed) thegreatest in the history of the world? At the same time, there exists a kind of political unity in Americathat we do not experience in the same way in Canada. In the U.S., themajor questions do not threaten the actual existence of the country (atleast since the Civil War). In Canada, it seems that every majorpolitical question implies possible catastrophe, the existence of thenation hanging in the balance: the status of Quebec, provincial versusfederal power, Native rights, Western separation. Despite this ongoing sense of unity, power and privilege in theU.S., the recent global financial earthquake appears to have shaken thefoundations of American security. It is hard not to stare in disbeliefwhen the U.S. national debt is more than $11.5 trillion and annualmilitary expenditures in 2010 hover between $880 billion and $1.03trillion, approximately equal to what the rest of the world, combined,spends on military junk. The decline of the American empire, as asubject of discussion, is suddenly on the radar. And well it should be. There appears to be a distinct wobble in theAmerican juggernaut, glaringly obvious in the background during theGrady and Simonds journey. This is most apparent in the inability of thecountry to solve certain intractable problems. The American addiction tooil is one, the decline in educational standards another. It covers anincredibly wide range of obstacles from rampant obesity to cities andtowns rotting at the core. They cannot even manage to close Guantanamo,a seemingly simple task compared to other problems, although thatinfamous prison stands as a symbol to the world of American hypocrisy,the abject failure of American ideals, a negation of a concept ofjustice shared across the western world. (Concerning Guantanamo, onecannot resist quoting Georges Clemenceau: "Military justice is tojustice what military music is to music.") In any case, it isclearly a complex country with a deep malaise. Meanwhile, a hardening ofpolitical stances between red and blue states is leading to paralysis.There are no simple answers, and yet little will exists to join togetherto solve the many intractable problems. In Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, therespected author and thinker Niall Ferguson has warned of America'sdecline. Because complex systems are fragile systems, he says, thedecline could be precipitous rather than slow and steady. Ourgovernments and our societies would have little time to react to the newreality. Of course, no one can safely predict when or how this mighthappen. In another sense, America (and the rest of the globe for thatmatter) is fragile because it is so connected. Grady and Simonds were21st-century travellers, using the interact to find lodging in the nexttown, staying in touch with writing students back home on their laptopsfrom a Louisiana cafe. Incredible power as well as astonishing fragilitycharacterize our technological systems: the internet, linked powergrids, interconnected financial services, and so on. In a multi-point tomulti-point system, pulling the plug brings everything down in onetangled heap. In that scenario, I doubt the U.S. Marines or unmanneddrones will be any help at all. Americans--so like us Canadians and yet so different. We learn thatsimple fact over and over as Grady and Simonds stay at mom-and-popmotels or familiar hotel chains, or discover a fine restaurant or arestuck eating whatever they can scrabble together in the car. And, ofcourse, Starbucks everywhere. Just like here. And the land, so vast andso varied. The authors are able to share their wonder at theoverwhelming beauty of the Grand Canyon while commenting with insight onthe dispiriting Disneyland that surrounds it. Grady and Simonds prove particularly adept at describing thelandscape and the environment (Grady has written a number of books onenvironmental issues and the natural world): "We drive between redcanyon walls that loom above us, looking almost sculpted in the waytheir crenellated tops resemble chimneys and battlements, their crownsand lower talus approaches fringed with evergreens." They also payclose attention to the local birds. They are not the kind of birders whomake a religion out of it, but they are quick to grab the binoculars andreport on who is still afloat in the avian environment. If one is to travel well, one wants good travel companions.Travellers who arrive with their eyes and hearts open, acute observerswith the skill to separate the steak from the sizzle. Virgils with wit.A Bill Bryson or a Redmond O'Hanlon. Grady and Simonds share asense of humour with these others and the ability to realize (and bare)their own foibles and failings. Some of the most affecting sections of this journey explore thestate of race relations as they exist today in the southern UnitedStates. From the authors' perspective, not much has changed. Thissubject is particularly pertinent because one of Grady's ancestorswas a slave and he delivers a fair amount of fascinating information onthis scourge. In one particularly telling anecdote, Simonds describes attendingthe Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Selma, Alabama, the largest inthe United States. After two hours of watching high school bandsmarching past and politicians tossing candies, Simonds turns to leaveand realizes hers "has been the only white face in the crowd." A subtext, a dark undercurrent, informs their meetings withAmericans. This is something anyone can notice travelling in the U.S.,especially in the South. A hearty friendliness is apparent on thesurface, and a genuine generosity tends to prevail. However, certainuntouchable subjects must not be broached: religion, race, politics,sexuality. And one must never question the place of America in theworld. Touch on these subjects and the smile dissolves. They are not upfor rational discussion. Near the end of the book and their journey, Grady writes: Partly, I still think what I thought before we made this trip, because those thoughts were based on the image America projects to the outside world: its overweening sense of its own rightness, its casual assumption that it can buy or sell whatever it wants, its ability to proceed as though everything were on the table, its refusal to learn from its own history. I cannot forgive America for what it forced my great-grandfather to do. Or for what it has done to its rivers and forests and mountains and deserts, which seems to me to be almost on a par ... Am I still anti-American? No, and I suspect I never really was. It is not anti-American to wish America had been better than it was, or to want it to be better than it is. The Grady-Simonds journey took place in the last days of the Bushadministration. In a strictly political sense, it feels as if we areback in prehistory. When Simonds reads about the presidential campaignin a newspaper, she mentions to her partner that the United States couldend up with a black president. Grady comments: "America would beanother country." One senses a great disappointment across the political spectrumthat it has turned out to be, in fact, the same country. The very factof the election of a black president seemed so unlikely at the time thatit felt like a new age was upon us. Hope blossomed in a thousand darkcorners. But Obama came into office with impossible expectationsweighing him down. America's problems are profound. The rest of theworld shares or will share many of those same obstacles, so we have aninterest in seeing how America fares and wishing them well. Yet thereappears to be a lack of good will, a kind of paralysis, in trying todeal with them. To use a particularly apt metaphor for the age, is theAmerican empire running out of gas? In the early 20th century, Clemenceau also said: "America isthe only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly frombarbarism to degeneration without the usual interval ofcivilization." An exaggeration, of course, but one with adisturbing modicum of truth. Mark Frutkin's novel, Fabrizio's Return (Knopf, 2006),won the 2006 Trillium Award and was a finalist for the CommonwealthAward (Canada/ Caribbean Region). His most recent book is Erratic North:A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush. He was bornand raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but his mother was from Toronto.