From the bestselling author of Rats, a personal and national history of one of America's favorite pastimes: driving across the country.

The cross-country trip is the trip that often whizzes past us on our way to quaint back roads and scenic parks; it's an America of long, looping highways, strip malls, fast-food depots, and road rage, but also one that is wide-open, awe-inspiring, and heartwarmingly lonely. Here, Sullivan, who has driven cross-country more than two dozen times, recounts his family's annual summer migration from Oregon to New York. His story of moving his family back and forth from the East Coast to the West Coast (and various other migrations), is replete with all the minor disasters, humor, and wonderful coincidences that characterize life on the road, not to mention life.

As he drives, Sullivan ponders his nation-crossing predecessors, such as legendary duo Lewis and Clark, as well the more improbable heroes of America's unending urge to cross itself: Carl Fisher, an Indianapolis bicycle maker who founded the Indy 500, dropped cars off of buildings and imagined the first cross-country road; Emily Post, who, before her life as an etiquette writer, was one of the first cross-country chroniclers; and the race car drivers who, appalled by the invention of seatbelts and speed limits, ran an underground cross-country car race in the 1970s known as the Cannonball Run. Sullivan meets Beat poets who are devotees of Jack Kerouac, cross-country icon, and plays golf on an abandoned coal mine. And, in his trademark celebration of the mundane, Sullivan investigates everything from the history of the gas pump to the origins of fast food and rest stops. Cross Country tells the tales that come from fifteen years of driving across the country (and all around it) with two kids and everything that two kids and two parents take when driving in a car from one coast to another, over and over, driving to see the way the road made America and America made the road.

来自《老鼠》的畅销书作者，这是一部关于美国人最喜欢的消遣之一的个人和国家历史：驾车穿越全国。

跨国旅行是在我们去往古朴的小路和风景优美的公园的路上经常从我们身边呼啸而过的旅行；这是一个充满漫长的环形公路、带状购物中心、快餐店和路怒症的美国，但也是一个宽阔、令人敬畏和令人感动的孤独的美国。在这里，沙利文，这位已经驾车越野二十多次的人，讲述了他家每年夏天从俄勒冈州到纽约的迁移。他把家人从东海岸迁往西海岸的故事（以及其他各种迁徙），充满了所有的小灾难、幽默和奇妙的巧合，这些都是路上生活的特点，更不用说是生活。

苏利文一边开车，一边思考他跨越国界的前辈，如传奇二人组刘易斯和克拉克，以及美国无休止的跨越自我的冲动中那些更不可能的英雄。卡尔-费舍尔（Carl Fisher）是印第安纳波利斯的一名自行车制造商，他创办了印第500大奖赛，将汽车从建筑物上扔下，并想象出了第一条越野公路；艾米莉-波斯特（Emily Post）在成为礼仪作家之前，是第一批越野记录者之一；还有那些对安全带和速度限制的发明感到震惊的赛车手，他们在20世纪70年代开展了名为 "炮弹跑 "的地下越野车比赛。沙利文会见了越野车的代表人物杰克-凯鲁亚克（Jack Kerouac）的追随者，并在一个废弃的煤矿上打高尔夫球。而且，在他标志性的对世俗的赞美中，沙利文调查了从油泵的历史到快餐和休息站的起源等一切。越野》讲述了15年来带着两个孩子开车穿越全国（以及全国各地）的故事，以及两个孩子和两个父母开车从一个海岸到另一个海岸时的一切，一次又一次，开车去看道路造就了美国，而美国也造就了道路的方式。