Monster of a Land

Lauren Hough has always been haunted by the road trips she never got to take: no money, no vacation days, no car capable of making the trip. So, upon finally finding herself in a situation where such a trip might be possible—being a writer may not always pay better than being a bartender or a cable guy, but at least the schedule’s flexible—she leaps at the chance, refurbishing a ramshackle 2001 Dodge van and setting off from Austin, Texas with her Husky mix Woody by her side.

Her influences feel obvious—but a lot has changed about the United States since the 1962 trip John Steinbeck chronicles in Travels with Charley. And Lauren Hough isn’t John Steinbeck—unless the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Grapes of Wrath had a secret past as a six-foot-tall lesbian and Air Force vet. But even better as a social lubricant than beer, a dog is the ultimate conversation starter.

With Woody as wingman, Lauren chats—at gas stations and restaurants and auto shops and bars—with an incredible cross-section of Americans from all walks of life and every possible political perspective. And as she circumnavigates the country, she documents, with all-too-rare empathy, what it means to be poor, to be marginalized, and to be seen as Other in America.