From Library Journal
The mystique and memory of Route 66 have spawned an industry based on adventure, the open road, and the great expanse of America between Chicago and Santa Monica, CA. This reviewer confesses to searching out obscure parts of Route 66, "The Mother Road" (Steinbeck's name for it), in the California desert. Such a search should be led by Kittel, a German photographer with special observation skills and an exquisite talent for composition. In a volume that moves from the flat Midwest to the astonishing Southwest, Kittel is careful to let changing topography serve only as a tantalizing backdrop to what people built and preserved or abandoned beside the asphalt of Route 66. Each photograph deserves a few minutes of the viewer's time while its story becomes clear or, just as often, resonates as perfectly absurd in cafes and souvenir-shop interiors, reminding us that this roadway runs through a land of individuals. Unfortunately, this friendly appreciation is marred by the leaden cliches of Bloom (history, Wheaton Coll.), who must be more effective in the classroom than as a hitchhiker offering a useless text on Kittel's journey. Equally clumsy prose comes from Langer, photo and travel editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, whose writing here is translated into English. Otherwise, this glorious American book about a road and its endless (visual) possibilities is recommended. David Bryant, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
San Francisco Chronicle, 12 May 2002
[O]ne of the better books about America's 'mother road'.... enough to make you weep for lost time and lost loves.
