But this one is propelled by a quick-moving plot and evolves into a story of friendship and love among three traveling companions. It was a story, for certain, that a lifetime of exploration and writing of America would inform.įor those familiar with Heat-Moon’s writing, this book breaks new ground. He wanted to portray a story of how men of different races and backgrounds grew together in companionship. Heat-Moon said he set out to write a book about the nation’s great need to heal those scars of social injustice and racial distress. Heat-Moon, in a recent interview in his adopted hometown of Columbia, Missouri, described how his new book, unlike his others, poured out of him in a year or less as he observed the turmoil fueled by the nation’s deepening divisions, especially over race. His most well-known work, “Blue Highways,” was introduced to America on the cover of The Atlantic magazine in 1982 the book’s initial cover carried a quote from Robert Penn Warren, the only writer to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and for poetry. His legacy, most would agree, is already set.

One of America’s most celebrated nonfiction writers, Heat-Moon is in his 80th year. It was born of the author’s own worries about the fractious nature of this grand experiment of America. 24 from the University of Missouri Press. The book, “O America: Discovery in a New Land,” is available Feb. Trennant is the protagonist for a new novel by Kansas City-born author William Trogdon, who is known more widely by his pen name, William Least Heat-Moon.

William least heat moon