On the Water

July 15, 2002
Stone, a former teacher and newspaper publisher, followed his childhood dream of traveling on water a dream he took to a higher level after reading about the efforts of Howard Blackburn, a fisherman from Gloucester, MA, to sail around the eastern United States in the 19th century. (That epic journey of hardship at sea is recounted in Joseph E. Garland's Lone Voyager.) Stone decided to trace Blackburn's route but does it entirely by rowing. He began in Brooklyn, traveled up the Hudson, passed through the Erie Canal, portaged his craft to the Allegheny, and then headed on to the Ohio and down the Mississippi. At New Orleans, he took a break, got a larger boat, and continued rowing around Key West, up the Eastern seaboard, and on past Brooklyn, stopping at the Canadian border. Along the way, he encountered many fine and kindly folk (and a few odd ones) and the world's largest statue of Superman in Metropolis, IL, traveled with a stray cat along the Florida coast, and discovered that completion of the journey was not so much the goal as actually doing it. But complete it he does. A delightful account of a remarkable solitary voyage; recommended for all public and large academic libraries. Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2002
Here's a real treat for fans of travel writing. As a child, the author had imagined what it would be like to set out in a small boat and follow the rivers, lakes, and canals of the U.S. As an adult, in a 17-foot scull, he did just that; pushing off from New York City's Hudson River, he rowed to the Erie Canal, down to Ohio, onward to the Mississippi, across the Gulf to Key West, and back up along the coastline of the Atlantic to Maine. It was a 6,000-mile journey, and it took him 10 months to complete. This is the chronicle of his adventure, his voyage into and around America, the story of the people he met and the places he saw. It's not one of those faux-poetic, pseudo-philosophical travel books in which the author finds the meaning of the universe on the road (or in his boat). Instead, it's a straightforward, crisply written memoir: here's where I went, here's what I did, here are some people I met. The author shows great respect for the places and people he encountered, and only slowly, almost imperceptibly, buried in the fascinating detail, does a message emerge: the U.S. is a wonderful place to drift through, a country filled with interesting, unusual, helpful people and beautiful things to see. That's really all Stone is trying to say, but he says it so unpretentiously, always showing never telling, that the book has tremendous impact. Highly recommended for fans of plainspoken travel writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)