Comments on: Gang Leader for a Day http://www.tedconover.com/2010/01/gang-leader-for-a-day/ Web site for Ted Conover, Author Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:51:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Susan http://www.tedconover.com/2010/01/gang-leader-for-a-day/comment-page-1/#comment-309 Susan Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:45:00 +0000 http://www.tedconover.stevemotzenbecker.com/?p=485#comment-309 Wow--has it really been over two years since I've read this? I agree with you about how this book was marketed, but I have to admit---this is exactly why I picked it up at the library, so I forgive such a small shortcoming. The book was incredibly exciting to read and prompted me to share several exerpts with my family and friends, all of whom were interested and wanted to hear more. Unfortunately there was no exciting end to J.T.'s story and Vankatesh's final paragraph was definitely awkward, but then how else could it have ended? When I read books like this (I loved David Shipler's account of the working poor in America), including your books (Coyotes, The Routes of Man) I feel more connected to the real world. From the time I was 17 until I married at 23 I took odd, temporary menial labor (despite being the daughter of an MIT grad) just to survive and get to the next adventure somewhere else in the country--usually by bus, a few times by car (Route 66, 3am, head out the window trying to stay awake, cigarettes, radio....all to no avail. I saw the purple dinosaurs galloping across the highway in front of me and had to pull over). I am now a housewife in Rochester, NY and I am bored out of my skull. I miss my days of hitting the open road all by myself. One suitcase and a wad of bills. For me, it was always about interacting with the people. The suburbs are so sterile, so boring! We have no culture. People in Rochester are rarely friendly, usually superficial, and typically suspicious of outsiders. It is my birthplace, but not my hometown. A trip this summer to Dallas, the place I was raised, left me with the humble realization that one really can't go back home again. Talk about roads! Once wide highways have been widened further, monumental overpasses with embedded Texan stars and surrounded by perfectly lush landscaping, all eerily tended to by Mexicans in wide-brimmed hats weilding hand clippers and weedeaters is quite a sight. Rochester is a dump compared to that, but I couldn't help but feel even further removed from my hometown knowing that a neighbor here in Rochester, ironically the woman up the road from me who sells produce and cider, roller skated on I-75 when she was a teenager and the highway was just beginning to be built. My real home is completely gone to me now. Wow–has it really been over two years since I’ve read this? I agree with you about how this book was marketed, but I have to admit—this is exactly why I picked it up at the library, so I forgive such a small shortcoming. The book was incredibly exciting to read and prompted me to share several exerpts with my family and friends, all of whom were interested and wanted to hear more. Unfortunately there was no exciting end to J.T.’s story and Vankatesh’s final paragraph was definitely awkward, but then how else could it have ended?

When I read books like this (I loved David Shipler’s account of the working poor in America), including your books (Coyotes, The Routes of Man) I feel more connected to the real world. From the time I was 17 until I married at 23 I took odd, temporary menial labor (despite being the daughter of an MIT grad) just to survive and get to the next adventure somewhere else in the country–usually by bus, a few times by car (Route 66, 3am, head out the window trying to stay awake, cigarettes, radio….all to no avail. I saw the purple dinosaurs galloping across the highway in front of me and had to pull over).

I am now a housewife in Rochester, NY and I am bored out of my skull. I miss my days of hitting the open road all by myself. One suitcase and a wad of bills. For me, it was always about interacting with the people. The suburbs are so sterile, so boring! We have no culture.

People in Rochester are rarely friendly, usually superficial, and typically suspicious of outsiders. It is my birthplace, but not my hometown. A trip this summer to Dallas, the place I was raised, left me with the humble realization that one really can’t go back home again.

Talk about roads! Once wide highways have been widened further, monumental overpasses with embedded Texan stars and surrounded by perfectly lush landscaping, all eerily tended to by Mexicans in wide-brimmed hats weilding hand clippers and weedeaters is quite a sight. Rochester is a dump compared to that, but I couldn’t help but feel even further removed from my hometown knowing that a neighbor here in Rochester, ironically the woman up the road from me who sells produce and cider, roller skated on I-75 when she was a teenager and the highway was just beginning to be built. My real home is completely gone to me now.

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