The Last Great Road Bum

What a title. What a story line. I was sold, without reading sample or review — certain it was a well paced, outright adventure. Or was it ? I quickly found it to be something else entirely. Written in a style more fitting to a Victorian novel — heavy, slow, and excessively wordy. The story is interesting, but often seems dulled or lost in the literary clutter. The original notes were written in this manner, and unfortunately the book\’s creator followed the same style. Not a good fit for a story of adventure. It did improve somewhat as it went along. But still heavy, and a bit of work to read. I must admit to some serious skimming and skipping to make it to the end. Reading a sample before buying is always a good idea — but in this case, absolutely necessary.

A travel story about Joe, a guy who didn’t cook or spend money in restaurants. Joe is one of many idealistic Americans who went dictator ruled countries in Central America to help ordinary people regain some control over their lives. He slept on the ground and was buried in it too. An entertaining read.

On page 143 of this book we read \”That night in their Hong Kong hotel room Rebecca took a peek at Joe\’s notebook while he slept. Mostly names of towns and times of day and snippets of stuff people say. This is not writing\”… That explains this book. It consists of a dizzying array of events, people and locations, but we don\’t stay in one place long enough to develop a connection with anyone or anything. It seems like it would have made more sense to focus on a smaller number of the expeditions and expound on those. A few of the relationships that form could also have been developed much more. We may then have a memorable story in here somewhere. As it is now this book was a big bore.

Tobar has recreated the real life of Joe Sanderson, who spend his short adult life bumming around the world. Using a trove of Sanderson’s journals, unpublished novels, and letters, Tobar has recreated the journeys and thoughts of a young guy from Urbana, Illinois who lusted for more. Joe’s thoughts flit from here to there, but always giving us a view of the new places he is exploring. He has a wide range of experiences from his early stay with Rastafarians in Jamaica to a wild road trip with Chileans in South America to experiencing the famine in Biafra. As he travels, the reader is privy to the reason he became a radical and eventually end up with guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. It was with this group that he died in combat at the age of 39. I was torn between wanting Joe to grow up and stop asking his mom for travel money and being jealous of his breezy way of traveling and meeting new people and spending more time listening than talking as he discovered new ways of looking at life.

The title \”The Last Great Road Bum\” is the perfect title for this historical fiction book about Joe Sanderson\’s short, but impactful life. Hector Tobar used Joe Sanderson\’s notes and voice to help tell the story of his trips and adventures around the world. Sanderson couldn\’t stay in one place for very long as he searched for meaning and place he could make a difference. Family was extremely important to him, and as he traveled, he wrote long detailed and very coded letters to his parents and brother. He discovered later that he could use his life skills to help fight the unjust world in El Salvador. Joe was known by many there by his looks, but had many names to protect his identity while assisting and sometimes leading the abushes. The novel was sometimes a bit wordy, but also gave you a deep sense of what he was experiencing and witnessing throughout his many escapades. It was fascinating to witness the political awakening through Joe Sanderson\’s eyes during the 1960\’s through the 1980\’s. Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to listen to this book for an honest review.

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