Rolling Nowhere

With little knowledge of real hobo life, Conover left college in the East, jumped a train in St. Louis and headed west. In the months that followed, he crossed and recrossed 14 states, meeting and traveling with a dozen or more modern-day hoboes. He learned from them how to survive, living off of handouts, sleeping rough, avoiding the railroad police. And he learned about loneliness and loss of identity.

There are moments of pure pleasure, a tin cup of steaming coffee on a cold high plains morning, the unbroken landscape gliding by open boxcar doors. And there are times when the romance of adventure disappears completely -- in bad weather and bad company. I greatly enjoyed this book and was often touched by Conover's youthful pursuit of independence and experience, often taking risks and crashing head-on into realities he does not anticipate. At the end, the romance of the rails has been pretty much stripped away; he's not sorry, but he's had enough.

His book "Coyotes" is a great companion to this one, as it shows him a little older and somewhat wiser, on yet another risk-taking adventure that throws him into yet another marginal world.


Sporadically interesting, eventually slightly tiresome   April 28, 2002
 16 out of 18 found this review helpful

While growing up, author Ted Conover was fascinated by the hobo lifestyle which represented freedom, independence and adventure. So, in 1980, he took time off from studies at Amherst to play hobo and ride the rails through the western states, ostensibly gathering material for a senior anthropology thesis. Hopping a freight in St. Louis, he went by stages to Denver, Salt Lake City, Pocatello (Idaho), Havre (Montana), Fargo (North Dakota), Spokane, Seattle, Portland, Eugene (Oregon), Oroville (California), Elko (Nevada), Oakland, Bakersfield (California), Los Angeles, Yuma, El Paso, and back to Denver. Along the way, he meets and loosely befriends those that wander from one place to the next in search of food stamps, discarded edibles and a safe place to sleep - an autonomy and liberty gained at the sacrifice of loved ones, comfort, security, and the income from a steady 9 to 5. The most interesting was 50-year old Sheba, the rare female tramp, who'd built herself a multi-room shelter out of old tires.

Conover is a talented writer who deftly captures the "romance" of the rails in ROLLING NOWHERE.

About the scenery from a boxcar: "A twisting chasm of waterfalls, spillways, gray rock, and isolated scrub trees hanging on to the canyon walls for dear life, the Feather River Canyon was inaccessible by car, but ... spectacular by freight train."

About the grunge: "Forrest ... scratched his scalp vigorously and pulled out a small something. He flicked it away with distaste toward the other side of the tree where I slept."

About the food: "I ... shared ravenously in the fare: a bottle of cold white port, a small, dirty Baggie of lettuce, and two brown bananas." But hey, the chow isn't all bad. Evidence gathered by Ted suggests that dumpster diving in back of KFCs after closing hour yields a feast of mashed potatoes and fried chicken. And I love fried chicken. ("Say, Hon, what are we doing for our wedding anniversary dinner?" Am I a romantic devil, or what?)

The author's youthful idealism is evident at the book's conclusion when he preaches for fairer treatment of hoboes by the society through which they wander. They are, after all, victims of the system. This is several pages after he describes his welcome of a fellow traveler trying to climb aboard his moving boxcar uninvited: "He was about to leap in when I set my boot down on his fingers, hard. With a yelp, he disappeared." A nice touch, don't you think?

While reading ROLLING NOWHERE, I was struck by the author's almost complete lack of humor in describing a journey that should have afforded more opportunities for such. This is a serious piece written in a deadpan style. I wish Ted had lightened up some. There were also so many instances of deja vu that I soon realized that I'd read this book before - probably back in the early 80's when first published. I need to write myself a note that twice is more than enough such that I don't pick it up again two decades from now. Instead, maybe I can find a book about vacationing in the garbage dumps of Calcutta.


In the Land of In Between   December 30, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

You've got to give Conover credit, the kid has guts. Discontent with his college studies, which seem a bit unreal and removed from real life, he decides to do some hands on research and give the life of a hobo a try. Predictably, things are not what he expects. The life of a hobo (more accurately known as a tramp) is far from romantic and most often full of hardship and danger. However, Conover also discovers a world of fascinating folks who, when push comes to shove, are not so different from the rest of us.

There is Lonny, the eternal optimist whose head is full of dreams that never materialize, Pistol Pete with his injured hand and jealous sidekick BB who propose a 3-muskateers deal and then run off with most of his gear, Forrest and Bill with whom he discovers the depths of being a tramp, and Monty who is pursued by personal ghosts.

Equally important to Conover's education is his personal transformation from a well-dressed, polite city kid to a rail smart tramp who won't let anyone take advantage of him. His hair grows, his clothes become dirty, layered and ragged, he learns to smoke and drink cheap booze, to scavange in dumpsters for leftover food and how to apply for food stamps. Even more revealing to him is how he is treated as his physical appearance changes. Suddenly people look away, a policeman finds a reason to arrest him for walking on a public sidewalk and he is treated with mistrust and even disgust when he goes into stores.

Conover emerges from his adventures with a bad case of head lice but nothing worse physically. However, it is clear that his inner psyche has undergone a transformation. He has questioned the assumptions of his middle class upbringing and dared to immerse himself in the lives of one of our country's most misunderstood groups. In writing frankly about his experiences, he forces the reader to see hoboes for who and what they really are - people like the rest of us doing the best they can to get by in this world. Such a revelation is always a bit of a shock, but in this case it was also heartening. The people in Conover's book are full of life and memorable quirks. They are real characters in every sense of the word, who force you to respond to their lives. The book is not an appeal to save the downtrodden, a psychological dissertation on the causes of poverty or a condemnation of a society that produces hoboes. It is simply one man's quest to understand another way of life and himself in doing so. You'll come away challenged, touched and questioning some of your own assumptions about how life should be lived.


a moving remembrance of days gone by   November 7, 2001
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

The hobo has been declared extinct many times, just as
America is always declared robbed of her innocence.
However, it IS true, I can vouch as a freight-train rider
myself, that economic and legal changes have greatly
reduced the number of tramps in recent years. What Ted
did as a very young man was to explore a shadowy and
dangerous world that is full of unforgettable memories
and vast scenic rewards and to come out the other end
with a great book. He captures the longing, the pain,
the exhilaration of exploring the country in a way shunned by its
increasingly organized and comfortable citizens. He captures
the agony and durability of the (almost entirely) men who
wind up in this underworld and manage to stay alive and
sometimes even defiant. This is a great book. Along with
"Good Company" by Doug Harper (1980), it is one of the very
few testaments to freight-train riders to come from recent times.


wonderful beginning   November 3, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is the first of Ted Conover's four books available today. I am now reading the fourth. I recommend all of them. Rolling Nowhere is a fascinating look at a fading overlooked culture. Ted's compassion for marginalized populations is evident. I'd love to meet the author and talk about his other adventures that didn't become published books.