Book Review - American Odyssey

American Odyssey: A Book Selling Travelogue
by Len Fulton, with Ellen Ferber
Dustbooks, 1975
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III

Most road trip books have at their heart some type of quest, though many of these can be rather nebulous. For Len Fulton and Ellen Ferber, the goal of the road trip that spawned American Odyssey was very straightforward - to sell Fulton's novel, The Grassman, and to raise awareness of small press publishing, in general.

Published in 1974, by Fulton's Dustbooks imprint, American Odyssey chronicled a journey that covered nearly 10,000 miles in just three weeks, starting in California, moving across the northern states, hitting New York City and New England and coming back across the country on a more southerly route.

Along the way the authors visited several hundred bookstores in 70-plus cities, not to mention assorted and sundry distributors, newspaper reviewers and whatnot. The result - more than 500 copies sold of The Grassman, a smattering of sales for other Dustbooks titles and a dose of general goodwill and publicity for small press publishing.

A slim book, American Odyssey is more of a curiosity (albeit it an entertaining one) than a solid road trip book. Though it manages to balance travel writing with a chronicle of the duo's bookselling efforts, readers with no interest in the latter might find the tale wanting.

(Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved)