Books: U. S. in a Bus

THE ROAD: IN SEARCH OF AMERICA—Nathan Asch—Norton ($2.75).

Since Walt Whitman's Song of the Open Road many a U. S. writer has attempted a modern sequel to that ringing inventory of the U. S. scene. Bravest of these attempts have come from such contemporary novelists as John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, Thomas Wolfe. To the lesser footnotes Novelist Nathan Asch (The Office, Pay Day) this week added his own modestly tentative, well-written account of what the U. S. means after a four-month bus trip.

Like Dos Passos, Author Asch believes the way to go about anatomizing the U. S. is to examine the...