William Least Heat-Moon (born William Lewis Trogdon, August 27, 1939) is an American travel writer and historian. He describes his heritage as English, Irish, and Osage. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, including cross-country trips by boat (River-Horse, 1999) and, in his best known work (1982's Blue Highways), about his journey in a 1975 Ford Econoline van.

Biography

William Trogdon was born in Kansas City, Missouri. William's father, Ralph Grayston Trogdon, was given the name "Chieftain Heat-Moon" by the Tribe of Mic-O-Say, an honor society of Scouting America; he was scoutmaster of a Boy Scout troop from 1936 to 1948. When William's elder half-brother from his mother's previous marriage was inducted into Mic-O-Say, he took the name "Little Heat-Moon" and William, wanting to continue the tradition, took the name "Least Heat-Moon." He cites Osage ancestry as reason for adopting the pen name "Little Heat-Moon" in later life, but none of the family has tribal citizenship and Trogdon does not consider himself "Indian."

Trogdon, the son of an attorney, grew up in Missouri where he attended public schools. He attended the University of Missouri, earning a bachelor's degree in 1961, a masters in 1962, and a PhD in 1972 (all in English). He later went back and completed a bachelor's in photojournalism at MU in 1978. In 2011, he received an honorary degree from MU. Trogdon was a member of the Beta-Theta chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon. He later served as a professor of English at the university.

Trogdon resides in Boone County near the Missouri River.

Works

Blue Highways (1982) is a chronicle of a three-month-long road trip that Least Heat-Moon took throughout the United States in 1978 after losing his teaching job and separating from his first wife. He tells how he traveled 13,000 miles, as much as possible on secondary roads, and tried to avoid cities. These roads were often drawn on maps in blue in the old-style Rand McNally road atlas, hence the book title. Living out of his van, he visited small towns such as Nameless, Tennessee; Hachita, New Mexico; and Bagley, Minnesota, to find places in America untouched by fast food chains and interstate highways. The book records his search for something greater than himself and includes memorable encounters in roadside cafés. This memoir was very popular, making the New York Times bestseller list in 1982–83 for 42 weeks. It was also the winner of a Christopher Award in 1984.

PrairyErth: A Deep Map (1991) is an account of the history and people of Chase County, Kansas. This work introduced the concept of a deep map.

River-Horse (1999) is Least Heat-Moon's account of a four-month coast-to-coast boat trip across the U.S. in which he traveled almost exclusively on the nation's waterways from the Atlantic to the Pacific. During this nearly 5,000-mile journey, he followed documented routes recorded by early explorers such as Henry Hudson and the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Columbus in the Americas (2002) is a brief history of Christopher Columbus's journeys.

Roads to Quoz (2008) is another "road book." This covers "not one long road trip, but a series of shorter ones" taken over the years between books. Robert Sullivan of the New York Times Book Review commented that Least Heat-Moon celebrates "serendipity and joyous disorder." Specifically, he attempts to illustrate a hybrid relationship between humans and the environment and how each entity influences the other. Nature is presented more as an active character in Least Heat-Moon's narratives as opposed to a backdrop.

Psychology of self

Although Blue Highways is remembered primarily for the physical trek, which covers about 38 of the 50 states in the U.S., the quintessence of the book is the internal journey that Least Heat-Moon takes. The blue highways allowed Least Heat-Moon the space and the freedom to reflect upon who he was, who he wanted to be, and how he fit into the greater world around him. Initiated by the loss of his job and the unraveling of his marriage, his own search for “self” quite literally took him down the road less traveled. Blue Highways has been likened to a cross between John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, and Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

One aspect of Blue Highways as a travel narrative is that it is a snapshot of American culture that echoes the sentiments of Beat Generation writings and even Romantic Era travelogues, but does so in the late 1970s. His decision to strike out on the open road in search of spiritual truths continued a tradition that captured the cultural outlook of a certain era in U.S. history (the 1950s–1970s). To a certain extent this tradition has been lost.

Bibliography

  • Blue Highways: A Journey Into America. Fawcett, 1982.
  • The Red Couch: A Portrait of America. With Kevin Clarke and Horst Wackerbarth. Olympic Marketing Corp, 1984.
  • "A Glass of Handmade." The Atlantic, November 1987.
  • PrairyErth (A Deep Map). Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
  • River Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America. Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
  • Columbus in the Americas (Turning Points in History). Wiley, 2002.
  • Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey. Little, Brown and Company, October 2008.
  • Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road. Little, Brown and Company, January 8, 2013.
  • An Osage Journey to Europe 1827-1830: Three French Accounts. University of Oklahoma Press, October 2013.
  • Writing Blue Highways: The Story of How a Book Happened. University of Missouri Press, May 2014. Hardcover, 978-0-8262-2026-4 / E-book, 978-0-8262-7325-3.
  • Celestial Mechanics: A Tale for a Mid-Winter Night. Three Rooms Press, April 2017. Hardcover, 978-1-941110-56-0 / E-book, 978-1-941110-57-7.

References

  • William Least Heat-Moon Papers at the University of Missouri Libraries Special Collections and Rare Books.
  • by Don Swaim
  • Nov. 11, 2008 interview with William Least Heat-Moon by Tom Ashbrook for National Public Radio, On Point
  • In Depth interview with Least Heat-Moon, August 7, 2005