Customer Reviews

Kindness Of Strangers

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

in light of recent events this book shed a ray of light on the dimming light of humanity in our world. A man leaves home with only identification and hitch hikes across the country relying only on the "kindness of strangers." Although he clearly points out that were he not male and caucasion the outcome could have been much different, the story is still heart warming. I have recommended this to sooo many friends and all have thanked me profusely for helping them search their hearts and souls with out being battered with questions of faith.

I have purchased numerous copies of this book to give to friends. After recently rediscovering book and reading for 5th time I was checking amazon to see if Mike McIntyre has any other titles. I felt compeled to write a review. In light of the recent World Trade center attack I really need something that confirmed my belief that good people are all around us. It really lifted me out of my gloom. A++++

What a godawful story about the scum and dregs of humanity as experienced by one hitch hiker. Even worse, the book was neither entertaining nor particularly well written. Don't waste your time or money on this book.

This book reminds me a little of Scott Savage's book (A Plain Life: Walking My Belief), although the author is not a Quaker. Reading one chapter in another book was enough to draw me to this title.

At 37, Mike McIntyre was an established journalist, with a good job in San Francisco, a girlfriend, a nice apartment. His job enabled him to travel all over the world, but he felt moved to leave it all behind, and travel by the grace of others from the West Coast to Cape Fear, North Carolina. He feels he's a coward, that he's afraid to take a gamble with anything...neither of these being words that describe Quakers. But his feeling that an inner voice is telling him to do this, and his conviction to go ahead despite less than encouraging words from his family ("you'll get raped," his own grandmother tells him) are, to me, a spiritual calling. He says he will not take money, not even if he finds it on the road in front of him. He sets out, wary but determined to go. Like Scott Savage's need to turn over his already expired driver's license, McIntrye has picked his destination as a symbolic gesture. "If I make it to Cape Hope," he says, "it will be as a different man from the one who starts the journey. I am afraid."

Right out the door, he finds himself a fill-in guest house on a talk show ("Life in the Country") on a local radio station. He isn't alone as a guest - his new partner is a tall, blond with red lipstick and high heels, a firefighter named Diana, who used to be named Dennis. The book is full of strange encounters, and is an interesting read, to put it mildly.

I am predisposed to liking books in this genre in which a person goes through some form of travel odyssey or ordeal and emerges that bit changed. "The Kindness of Strangers - penniless across America" is one of the best in its class and in my view I'd rank it among others like "Castaway" by Lucy Irvine, "Sea Change" by Peter Nicholls or "Adrift" by Steven Callahan. Now I'm left just wanting to know what happened to Mike McIntyre subsequently and how did he come to write the book in Guatamala. Above all, does he have more work in the pipeline?

I was in a trance from page one right through the epilogue. The author had the guts to do what so many of us are terrified of doing--to leave our lives for a couple of months, to step away and challenge our biggest fears. He describes his experience in a straightforward, no-punches-pulled manner that puts the reader right into his shoes. The reader sees "the real America"--a believable America, sees Life sliced right open, sees himself or herself vicariously exposed. The book shows heart, humor, whimsy, commitment, strength, vulnerability. A moving tale. A gift. I'd give it six stars if I could.

An incredible reading experience. I'm envious of Mike's journey and his experiences. I just finished the book about an hour ago, and I'm still awestruck. Wow.

Mike's travels lend a wonderful uplifting sensation to the American Dream and America as a whole. A must read for people interested in America. A thoughtful adventure that proves today's media centers on the bad making America seem like a devil dressed in RED WHITE & BLUE. Mike shows us that America is still that kind and considerate place that drove thousands of immigrants to the shores of this land through our 200+ year history. Pick it up and enjoy life again!

I couldn't put this fast paced and beautifully written book down. It's not only fun and exciting, it made me feel like I was right there with the author the whole way from the Golden Gate Bridge to Cape Fear. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to cut free and feel the wind in his hair, the world in his hands--warts, gold and all. It's as though the spirit of Jack Kerouac may have peeked over the author's shoulder as he wrote this compelling road book.

I love travel books. Peter Jenkins, Charles Kuralt, Robert Persig traveled across America and met people, some "normal," some characters, all Americans. Mike McIntyre drank his across America and met nothing but damaged humans, most of them were religious whackos to boot.

McIntyre met abjectly abused women, a man whose only story seems to have been how his brother drown in front of him 60 or so years ago, another man who watched a stranger commit suicide by leaping off a bridge in front of him with a baby in his arms, etc. Most of these people had found some warped version of god and wanted McIntyre to embrace him/her/it with them.

Reading this book, one gets the impression that America has no normal, undamaged, reasonable happy, reasonable well adjusted people at all. I don't believe that's the case. Maybe only damaged people pick up hitchhikers? I don't believe that either.

On top of the unpleasant experience of meeting the unhappy people with whom McIntyre peopled his book, the writing is dull and uninspired.

There are lots of great travel books. This isn't one of them.