The book - as proclaimed on the front cover of the paperback edition - spent forty-two weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Luckily for his readers, this experience became a journey of exploration, not one of mere escape, and in 1982 appeared Blue Highways (Atlantic Monthly/Little Brown), Least Heat-Moon’s account of the many Americas - metaphorical as well as physical - still existent beyond the entrances and exits of the interstate highway system. IN 1978, HAVING lost his teaching job at the University of Missouri as well as having split up with his wife, William Least Heat-Moon took off on the backroads of America, hoping to make a circle not only around the U.S., but also to go out and return to himself. Detroit, Gale Research, 1995.A Conversation With William Least Heat-Moon "Least Heat Moon, William." Contemporary Authors New Revision Series.
He has also contributed, as journalist and photographer, to numerous publications. After this memorable book came Prairy Erth (1991), an in-depth study of Chase County, Kansas, its people and history. Unlike other famous American "road" books-such as Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (1962), Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), and Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)- Blue Highways combined real insights into the human experience with a tone that was modest and intensely personal. His record of his journey, published as Blue Highways: A Journey Into America (1982), was a surprise publishing sensation, winning several awards and remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for 34 weeks. Following his Osage background, he travelled clockwise around the country ("That's the Indian way."), interviewing locals and occasionally photographing them.
Seeking to cope with his feelings of isolation and alienation, Least Heat Moon set out on a three-month, thirteen-thousand mile journey on the back roads-the blue high-ways-of America. In 1978 William Trogdon (who writes as William Least Heat Moon) was an obscure English teacher whose job and marriage were falling to pieces around him.
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