The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir

USA Today bestseller
American Booksellers Association bestseller

“Kendzior is an absolutely terrific writer.” —Sebastian Junger

The New York Times bestselling author of They Knew, Hiding in Plain Sight, and The View from Flyover Country navigates a changing America as she and her family embark on a series of road trips, in a book that is part memoir, part history, and wholly unique.

It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland—and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road—again and again.

Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events—the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic—reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States—physical, environmental, social, political—transform through the car window.

Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future—even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.