Nation: America In Search of Ease

FROM The Bronx, in perennial imitation of the pioneers, a salesman or engineer heads west in his camper—past the northern borders of Harlem, across the Hudson, through the almost Dantean landscape beside the New Jersey Turnpike, where his family rolls up the windows against the stench of chemical plants. Down the road, as the Howard Johnson's tick by, all breathe easier. By mid-Pennsylvania, past the Amish country and into the Allegheny foothills, the father is almost counting cows with his children. Local radio stations dissolve in static every 50 miles; insects detonate against...