The Last Great Road Bum

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The Last Great Road Bum Page 40

by Héctor Tobar


  * * *

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION created from many sources. It’s a product of my imagination, and also a work inspired and informed by the real life of Joe Sanderson. I quoted Joe’s letters, for the most part, with few edits, and I can’t vouch for the veracity of everything he wrote in those letters. And Joe and every other real person in this book would say they can’t vouch for the truth of all the passages I made up. I know that in trying to re-create the dreamscape of Joe’s life, I surely got some facts wrong.

  Many writers are quoted and paraphrased in the text, including Claude McKay, James Joyce, W. S. Merwin, Denis Johnson and Cathy Linh Che. I also consulted the work of Christopher Okigbo and Chinua Achebe on Biafra and the Nigerian Civil War, and Mohamed Choukri’s memoir about growing up in Morocco, For Bread Alone.

  * * *

  WHEN YOU WRITE A BOOK, your family lives it with you, as my wife, Virginia Espino, can attest. I thank her for her patience and support during the years I worked on this book, and also everyone in the Tobar–Espino clan, including my father, Héctor E. Tobar, who read all the early drafts of this work. My son Diego offered a critical insight into an early version of the prologue, and my son Dante gave me Funkadelic and assorted advice on matters scientific and literary; and I thank my daughter, Luna, for her repeated, dutiful notetaking while I dictated words and sentences as we drove on Los Angeles streets and freeways.

  At the University of California, Irvine, I owe so much to Vicki Ruiz, Louis DeSipio, Barry Siegel, Michael Szalay, and to all the great faculty there who’ve accepted me into their family. And to my former colleagues at the University of Oregon, Gabriela Martínez and Julianne Newton, and to the many faculty members who wandered into my office in Eugene as I was writing this book, including Torsten Kjellstrand (for some basic lessons on firearms), Gretchen Soderlund (for insights into Champaign-Urbana, the “Center of the Universe,”) and the late Alex Tizon.

  And finally, thanks again to my longtime literary collaborators Sean McDonald and Jay Mandel; their faith in me and my work has sustained me for many years.

  ALSO BY HÉCTOR TOBAR

  FICTION

  The Barbarian Nurseries

  The Tattooed Soldier

  NONFICTION

  Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free

  Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Los Angeles Noir, ZYZZYVA, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Contents

  FRONTISPIECE

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  DEDICATION

  SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS FROM THE AUTHOR

  A Statement from Our Protagonist

  I. The Part About the Boy: Natural Histories

    1. Urbana, Illinois, U.S.A.

    2. Champaign, Illinois

    3. Piatt County, Illinois

    4. Kingston. Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica

    5. Chicago. Mexico City

  II. The Part About the World: Pax Americana

    6. Gainesville, Florida. Hanover, Indiana

    7. Terre Haute, Indiana. Clarksville, Tennessee. Miami

    8. Maroon Town, Jamaica. Kingstown, Saint Vincent. Imbaimadai, British Guiana

    9. Decatur, Illinois. Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

  10. Tampico, Mexico. British Honduras. Guatemala City. The Panama Canal. Lima, Peru. Santiago, Chile. The Strait of Magellan

  11. Buenos Aires. Lisbon. Paris. Tangier. Tripoli. Damascus. Jerusalem. Baghdad. Kuwait. New Delhi. Kathmandu. Kabul. Teheran. Istanbul. London

  12. Lafayette, Louisiana. Los Angeles. Oakland, California. Hokkaido, Japan. Seoul. Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

  13. Vientiane, Laos. Bali, Indonesia. Djibouti, Afars and Issas. Addis Ababa. Kigali, Rwanda. Stanleyville, Congo. Johannesburg. Lagos. Uyo, Biafra

  14. La Paz, Bolivia

  15. Cuzco, Peru. Pensacola, Florida

  III. The Part About the War: Lucas

  16. San Salvador, El Salvador

  17. Mejicanos

  18. Urbana, Illinois

  19. Usulután, El Salvador

  20. La Guacamaya, Morazán

  21. Villa El Rosario

  22. Cerro Pando. Perquín

  23. El Mozote

  24. Yoloaiquín. San Francisco Gotera

  25. San Miguel

  26. Crossing the Río Sapo

  NOTES

  A FEW CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY HÉCTOR TOBAR

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  MCD

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  120 Broadway, New York 10271

  Copyright © 2020 by Héctor Tobar

  All rights reserved

  First edition, 2020

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lines from “My Mother Upon Hearing News of Her Mother’s Death” (poem) from Split, copyright © 2014 by Cathy Linh Che, Alice James Books.

  Photograph of Joe Sanderson in a hammock copyright © Susan Meiselas / Magnum Photos.

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-72040-7

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