Around the World in 22 Books
Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming
and Smoking Around America with Interruptions
by Jenny Diski
First published in 2002.
This edition by Virago.
This quirky book by Jenny Diski recounts
her trip around the perimeter of the USA by train recording her conversations
with the people she met, mostly in the trains' smoking sections. The book
evolves around her observations of, and interaction with, her travelling
companions whom she engaged with only for as long as they remained strangers
while maintaining her ideal sense of isolation. Being in the smoking car
gave Diski a sense of belonging, and the journey becomes a study of strangers
and estrangement from herself and the world.
