What happens when you drive across America with a car full of ghosts?
Robert Louis DeMayo retraces the spirit of Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley through a very different United States—4,000 miles of deserts, badlands, and back roads, with his dog up front and the voices of America’s greatest travel writers riding shotgun.
At first, he sees them clearly: Robert Pirsig cruising past on his motorcycle, Steinbeck and Charley in the next booth, Edward Abbey trading lines across a fire. As the miles pass and the country grows stranger, those presences fade, leaving him alone with hard questions about what “American” even means now.
This isn’t a carefree road‑trip romp or nostalgia for a simpler time. American Literary Nomads carries the meditative, questing energy of Blue Highways, Ghost Rider, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—a journey that’s part map, part mirror.
Edward Abbey
(1927-1989)
John Steinbeck and Charlie
(1902 – 1968)
Walt Whitman
(1819 - 1892)
Everett Ruess and Curly
riding Chocolatero.
(1914 – 1934?)
All Drawings featured here, and in American Literary Nomads were completed by Tom Fish.
Robert Pirsig and his 1966
Honda Super Hawk
(1928-2017)
Ernest Hemingway
(1899 – 1961)
Joseph Campbell
(1904 - 1987)
Mark Twain,
or Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(1835 – 1910)
After finishing this journey, be sure to explore Robert Louis DeMayo’s other travel narratives—stories that trace real‑world paths through wild landscapes, rich cultures, and moments of profound discovery.
