Cross Country
In a nutshell
Professional runner Rickey Gates ran unsupported across the USA from the Atlantic to the Pacific, about 6,000 km. This unconventional travelogue is built on more than 200 photographs, mostly portraits of people he met along the way, showing America today.
Who it's for: Lovers of travel writing and photography, not only runners.
You wake up after a night out and realise it wasn’t a dream. Donald Trump really did become president. Damn. “What country am I living in? Who are these people around me?” That’s more or less what professional runner Rickey Gates asked himself. To find the answers, he decided to cross America. From east to west. From the Atlantic to the Pacific. And how else than on foot, running.
Every journey starts (usually) with some kind of plan. Rickey started drawing. He drew a map of the USA and looked for the best route for himself. A route that would connect the important and the forgotten places of today’s America. The result? About 6,000 km, unsupported, just him and nature. He felt alone from the very start.
You’d expect a travel book. And you get one. But this travelogue is unconventional. It doesn’t offer a day-by-day view of places and experiences. The book would have to be ten times longer. Instead of quantity, the author focuses on quality. No fine wine. Just a selection of grapes, or rather berries.
Rickey Gates
So what makes the book so interesting? Rickey offers more than 200 professional photographs he took along the way. Many of them are portraits of people he met. Every photo is a micro-story, accompanied by a few words. Through the stories of these ordinary people he shows us America today.
Besides these large portraits, the book also has a category I’d call “collage from the road”. Each takes up a full double-page spread. One focuses on manhole covers, another on roadkill, a third on syringes, a fourth on vodka bottles, a fifth on… A brilliant idea that captures the monotony of the running itself.
https://youtu.be/jLxFP56sc7U?si=Y5Ywdx1aMczsrBF4
There’s less text in the book than pictures. And that’s a good thing. The author’s notes only fill in the important stages and decisions of his journey. How he perceives the world around him and the long stretch ahead of him. It’s clear that the world he found himself in for several months is different from the one he was used to.
But the book doesn’t end with physical contact with the Pacific. Rickey returns to the journey after a few days, weeks and months. How does he see the world he came back to? What did the journey give him, and what did it take away? An interesting ending to a book that offers food for thought for us too.
Final verdict
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Beautiful portrait photographs that say more than 1,000 words. And of course an incredible achievement.
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It would be nice to add a map of his route to the book, with the individual portraits marked on it.
