The Glimpse Traveler

This slender volume by poet and essayist Boruch (The Book of Hours) will transport readers to a time when a nation's youth searched for meaning against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. During spring break in 1971, an off-hand invitation from an acquaintance became a hitch-hiking adventure out west for then 20-year-old Boruch. There is the kind insurance salesman who picks them up in Illinois, feeds and houses them for a night, and shows them a photo of his three teenage sons, all serving in Vietnam. After a four-hour mind-numbing wait for a ride in Nebraska, a van spray painted in DayGlo colors arrives, drives them across country in a cloud of marijuana smoke and deposits them in California. Boruch uses iconic symbols and terms to capture an era when peace signs signaled goodbye, and "straight" was not a comment about sexuality, but the antithesis of hippie. Perhaps nothing is more illustrative than Boruch's recollection that she returned to the Midwest with the same $10 in her pocket that she started with; 37 years later, she found herself still startled at "the world's generosity to us." (Sept.)