Writing Blue Highways: The Story of How a Book Happened by William Least Heat-Moon (review)

William Least Heat-Moon's new book Writing Blue Highways is not a sappy, "poor me," or "woe is me" rendition of how exceedingly difficult and painful it is to write and publish a book. It's the story of how a man born in 1939 with BA, MA, and PhD degrees in English from the University of Missouri and a distinguished American writer went about writing and publishing a book on one of the greatest adventures of his life, a three-month, 13,000 mile, thirty-eight state journey deep into the interior of America to profile the lives of everyday Americans and how he went about writing and publishing his ode to these bedrock people—his "thirty-seven great characters."

Heat-Moon's focus is how best to preserve the stories and integrities of the "thirty-seven characters," not about how he had to prevail after umpteen revisions and disappointments following numerous rejections. As in all great writing, the original Blue Highways was not about the writer but about something far greater and more important than the writer—the pulse and integrity of the people of America. In a sense, Writing Blue Highways is also an examination of how best to tell the story of writing the book focused not so much on oneself, but on the process and on the desire to preserve the integrity of the original work.

Heat-Moon's intense determination, even after nearly four years of rejections of his Blue Highways, makes his efforts remarkable. Over and over he tells us that true writers have little choice but to write no matter how many rejections. His determination might even seem to be a bit excessive when, after a contract with royalty check had been awarded and the publisher was ready to proceed, a "little problem" arose. There was a slight hitch, one minor detail—there will be no pictures in the book! His manuscript has made it through the "transom," through the "slush pile," through the numerous reviews, final editing, and was in line for the presses. But pictures of the book's subjects, the main "characters," had to be deleted. Over the phone the editor explained, "the photographs are driving the price of the book too high. We're sorry to tell you this, but we're going to have to leave them out … there's no other choice."

At that point Heat-Moon stated, "There is another choice … I'll withdraw the manuscript." The stunned editor replied, "You're making a big mistake … a big, serious mistake." And then the line went dead. After nearly four years of anguish, pain, suffering, disappointment, and hardship getting his book written, revised and revised, accepted, edited, and nearly published, Heat-Moon said "No!" He was unwilling to compromise on an element he deemed to be one of the critical components and visual bedrock foundations of this text—photographs of his "thirty-seven characters" whose stories are foundational in the telling of Blue Highways.

Fortunately, the next morning the phone came alive. "You win," said the editor. It turns out that everybody, Heat-Moon and the reading public, won.

Writers and publishers want their books to sell well. They are concerned about sales. "Does the book have legs?" The morning after Heat-Moon received an actual real copy of his book, the publisher called to tell him, "It looks like Blue Highways doesn't have legs … it's more like wheels." During 1982 and 1983 Blue Highways was on the New York Times' bestseller list for forty-two weeks.

I first encountered Blue Highways during the 1980s while teaching at South Dakota State University. I had the privilege of teaching a marvelous course called "The Two Cultures: Bridging the Gap between the Humanities and the Sciences." Our purpose was to extend the themes of C. P. Snow and attempt to provide clear evidence that certain individuals, by virtue...