Stranger on a Train

Jenny Diski endeavours to circumnavigate the United States ...by train. She's not really intent on doing anything more than watch the scenery whip past and smoke. She finds a special place in the smoking car with it's cracked linoleum floor, institutional gray walls and hard plastic chairs. There, along with the outcast, nicotine hungry pariahs she can unrepentantly smoke in peace.

People seem to have other ideas and their lives and attendant stories reach out to her. Diski does a fair bit of literary people watching, enjoying that strange bit of alchemy that renders strangers immediately familiar when you're travelling. Otherwise unremarkable fellow travellers are rendered with warmth and each come with their own unique stories to tell.

While it did win the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award there's precious little consideration given to the passing American landscape. This is more a snapshot of the distinctly American lives that join Diski on her journey.