"Though far from the author's usual musings, this is actually aforerunner to the American road novel and very well could have been one of theinspirations for Jack Kerouac... this is a fine addition to public and academiclibraries." -- Library Journal

"Theodore Dreiser, roadwarrior... Dreiser's account of his homecoming will touch a familiar and responsivechord in anyone who has undertaken one.... In that, as in so much else in this book, as in the great body of all his work, Dreiser in his earnest, heartfelt, clumsy wayspeaks to the universal experience." -- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post BookWorld

"Because the book] provides a portrait of the artistas a young man and describes the nation as a mosaic of individual cultures, Dreiser's journey offers several different lessons. Part travelogue, partautobiography, part collection of essays, A Hoosier Holiday lays out the landscapeof a nation that ceased to exist once the highway unfurled across the map." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

By 1914, Theodore Dreiser was asuccessful writer living in New York. He had not been back to his home state in over20 years. When his friend Franklin Booth approached him with the idea of drivingfrom New York to Indiana, Dreiser's response to Booth was immediate: "All mylife I've been thinking of making a return trip to Indiana and writing a book aboutit." Along the route, Dreiser recorded his impressions of the people and landin words while his traveling companion sketched some of these scenes. In thisreflective tale, Dreiser and Booth cross four states to arrive at Indiana and thesites and memories of Dreiser's early life in Terre Haute, Sullivan, Evansville, Warsaw, and his one year at Indiana University.