Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moins, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after ten years in England he decided to go home - to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this amusing state-of-the-nation report on small-town America. From the Deep South to the Wild West, from Elvis's birthplace to Custer's Last Stand, through dire places he renamed Dullard, Coma and Doldrum, he embarked on an optimistic odyssey in search of his American dream. He found only a greedy, polluted nightmare.