American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed - Hardcover

Fitzgerald, Isaac

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593537793 ISBN 13: 9780593537794

Verlag: Knopf Publishing Group, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off to the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it.

“It’s a difficult thing, to separate legend from story from memory from fact.”


As a child, Isaac Fitzgerald was always captivated by Johnny Appleseed, drawn by family ties to the legend, his father’s larger-than-life stories, and a shared restlessness to leave home and discover what lies beyond. In American Rambler, he sets out, walking from Massachusetts to Indiana on a year-long journey to follow Appleseed’s path, turning a childhood fascination into a profound reckoning of loss and grief, ritual and faith, grimy gas-station bathrooms and scenic apple picking. A moving blend of memoir, history, and travelogue, American Rambler is at once an ode to the American heartland and an antidote to the breakneck pace of modern life.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ISAAC FITZGERALD is the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts. He is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (winner of an IACP Award). He appears frequently on The Today Show, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The Guardian, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives with his wife on the North Fork of Long Island.

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1

I’ve been drinking a bit less and praying a lot more than I used to.

Now, that’s not to say I’m drinking less than most people—­I’m not—­nor that a doctor would sign off on my lifestyle as a healthy one—­they wouldn’t—­but self-­betterment has to start somewhere, and for me that means choosing sobriety occasionally. More often than I’m used to, which is to say more often than any sane person living in these modern times would want to.

As for the praying? It’s not that I’m praying some saintly amount, but it’s another habit I’m developing, a healthier one. Like most of my habits, I picked this one up from my parents—­only to abandon it for decades—­taking prayer out on semi-­rare occasions like car accidents, late rent payments, or particularly bad hangovers. But over the past few years I’ve found myself doing it more and more, and not only when I’m in trouble. Sometimes in moments of happiness. Other times, contentment. Every once in a rare while, during a moment of peace, I find myself with my knees in the dirt reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

Which is what I’m doing right now—­though it should be noted that I’m on my knees because I’m hiding behind a bush, and that this is very much one of those vintage “Oh shit, I’m in trouble” prayers, not one of contentment or peace.

On top of all that, yes, I’m sober at the moment, though I’d rather not be, as I’m trying to avoid a railway police officer—­known as a bull—­who is slowly but steadily heading my way, and the stress of the situation is getting to me.

In my mind, I put an emphasis on “And forgive us our trespasses . . .”

∂

The plan was never to walk miles and miles on train tracks during a freezing day in early March—­and it certainly wasn’t to hide from a cop, trying not to get picked up on loitering charges for strolling along a railroad that up until very recently I believed to be abandoned. There was supposed to be a trail.

The Johnny Appleseed Trail of North Central Massachusetts, to be exact.

My interest in Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, was born of another habit I picked up from my parents but have only recently rediscovered: walking.

In a way, prayer and walking have a bit in common. A repetition. A solitude. They’re both ways of getting out of one’s own head—­or at least away from one’s more perilous thoughts, if only for a little while. (Drinking, come to think of it, has a similar effect.)

During the early years of my life, my family lived in Boston. We were poor, and we walked everywhere, rarely taking public transportation. My father biked to work, and my ma’s job at a local cathedral was a short stroll from the Catholic homeless shelter where we lived. My parents were working to get back on their feet after being dealt a few tough hands by life, and then making a few questionable decisions on top of that. One of those decisions was having me.

Our vacations were walks, too, my father taking me into the White Mountains in our beat-­to-­shit, hand-­me-­down, rust-­tinged Toyota truck—­the bed covered in a crumbling plastic shell. We’d backpack for days at a time in New Hampshire and Maine, sleeping in the makeshift camper if a thunderstorm rolled in, my small body curled into my father’s musty chest as water leaked in through the roof.

But if the weather was right, my da and I would spend our nights in the woods, sleeping in a cheap, lightweight tent—­or sometimes, when the temperature was perfect, in our sleeping bags under the stars. Once the sun came up, we would hike. Just the two of us, for miles and miles. My father telling long, elaborate stories to make sure my little legs kept pumping, putting one small foot in front of the other.

“Moonlight gleams off the sword of the red knight as he raises his weapon high above his head, the sharp blade whistling through the air as he brings it down with crushing force upon the green knight’s great helm.”

“Oh no!”

“Oh yes! And do you know what happened next?”

“No! Tell me!”

“Well, if you follow me to that next bend in the trail—­do you see it? That one right up there. If we get past that curve, then I can tell you the fate of our hero, the gallant green knight.”

Dry, dead leaves crunched under my father’s boots as he turned his back to me and hiked ahead. All I could do—­my head spinning, my spirit aching with a desire to know what would happen to the green knight—­was follow him.

Those legends, so often tales woven on the fly in my father’s mind—­using bits of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf, Seven Samurai, stories from the Bible, Lord of the Rings, and always, always, at least a touch of Star Wars—­kept me moving. When the stories of knights eventually dried up, maybe on day two or three of our hikes, I would learn history. None of it accurate. The shot heard round the world, fired by a Minuteman, known famously for being so quick that they could run faster than said bullet that was shot—­

“Which actually traveled around the whole world before it crashed into the chest of an unlucky British soldier, mind you.”

“I don’t think that’s how it went, Da.”

“That’s how it went. Don’t you believe me?”

By the fifth day of hiking, colonial history gave way to stories of how the West was won (violently, which, to be fair to my father, was accurate). Tall tales of Pecos Bill, which then made way for other American legends. John Henry. Paul Bunyan. Johnny Appleseed. Tornadoes were ridden and giant iron pans were greased by lumberjacks wearing blocks of butter as ice skates.

Apple trees got haphazardly planted across the vast expanse of the American frontier.

∂

It’s no wonder that, as far back as I can remember, I’ve been seduced by stories—­legends of all kinds—­but especially tales of people on permanent quests. You know the ones. They loom large. The lone wanderer, or a group of stragglers, rambling toward an endless horizon, either riding an old steed, like Rocinante (Don Quixote’s horse, or Steinbeck’s camper van named in tribute, take your pick), or on foot.

Fiction or nonfiction—­when you’re a child, you don’t know the difference. A book is a book. A story is a story. All you hear is your father’s voice.

It’s a difficult thing to separate legend from story from memory from fact. Especially when you’re young, surrounded by adults doing their best to hide a tough living situation—­eventually my parents and I left the homeless shelter and moved into John Leary House, a halfway house run by the Catholic Worker for unhoused people trying to find a permanent place to live—­with fantasies and self-­made lore in hopes of distracting a child from his surroundings.

To put it one way, I grew up with a sense of magic and wonder.

To put it another, I grew up never really sure what was real and what was myth.

The walking, though. Out there on a trail, following my father and listening to his stories. My feet on the ground.

The walking was real.

∂

Now that I’m older, the things I love about walking, other than fond memories of my father—­hell, maybe I’d go so far...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593537793
• ISBN 13: 9780593537794
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Knopf; https://knopfdoubleday.com; ; 3 Queen Caroline Street Hammersmith; London; W6 9PE; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar