Bill Gaston (Jen Steele Photography)

With his new book Spying on America, B.C. writer and retired writing professor Bill Gaston chronicles an almost two-week, early-summer car journey “through a bunch of red states, during Covid, between two Trumps.” Despite the title, though, this is not a top-secret reconnaissance mission into the country of our neighbours to the south. Nor is it a journalistic investigation, a sociological study, or anthropological case work. As Gaston explains to the American border guard (“stocky, with military hair, and a cap tilted down so its rim touched the tops of his eyebrows and revealed too much of the back of his shaven head”), he’s actually on a “genealogical tour” to Tabor, Iowa.

The small town, just north of the Missouri border, was founded by his Congregationalist missionary great, great, great grandparents as the westernmost point of the Underground Railroad. Those ancestors gave shelter to abolitionist John Brown, whom they kicked out when they learned his raids to the south had involved killing people. “Taking his rifles from the Gastons’ basement, and gathering his followers, Brown went off to attack the armoury at Harpers Ferry and got hanged without trial, triggering the Civil War.” Greater significance is bestowed on the journey when Gaston discovers that Tabor was the basis for the town of Gilead in Marilynne Robinson’s novel of the same name, which happens to be his favourite book.

For Gaston, who was born in the U.S. and became a Canadian citizen to avoid the draft, the pilgrimage seems almost preordained. And, after all, what is a retired creative writing professor supposed to do with his free time?

Gaston doesn’t take to the road alone. Along for the ride (in a late-model Dodge Charger rental, a substitute for Gaston’s “tiny old Honda Fit with bald tires”) are Gaston’s two sons, both in their early 30s, “who, because they worked in the arts, had no money but lots of time.”

The chronicle of this pilgrimage is a delight. An ongoing comedy of errors, cross-generational bonding (and gentle ribbing), encounters – yes, with Americans, mouth-watering dinners (as one son observes, “Mexican is the only real American food we’re going to find”), frequent “Daddisms” and wandering lectures (you can take the prof away from the lectern, but that’s not going to stop him), and a gradually escalating amount of damage to the rented muscle car, the journey reads like the best family trip you likely never had – and serves as a strong argument for the virtues of travelling with your children when they’re grown, as opposed to when they’re, well, children.

All of Gaston’s rightly vaunted skills as a writer are in evidence in Spying on America, in particular his knack for delving under the surface of characters, empathically revealing the depths behind the carefully tended facades. It’s different when the characters are actual human beings, but the process (and the insight) is the same.

Key to the book’s success is Gaston’s centring of himself within the narrative, not as an authority, but as a somewhat befuddled, good-natured but occasionally cantankerous, senior citizen on a road trip. He writes, “When I was young, I didn’t like old people. Now that I’m old myself, this hasn’t changed. … it’s not like people improve with age. It seems the reverse is more often true. More self-centred, bitter, oblivious to the zeitgeist and, let’s not mince words, stupider. It’s not our fault, there are reasons. So while old people kindle my sympathy, not many rouse my admiration. … I’m fully including myself in all of this; I don’t rouse my admiration much either.” Gaston never overplays this element of the narrative, nor does he play it for laughs. Rather, his befuddlement arises naturally and inevitably as situations occur. When, on the first night, he announces, having worked himself into a frenzy looking for a hotel and restaurant, “We can’t do this anymore,” the realization that he has aged out of spontaneous and unplanned travel is left unstated, but understood. It’s a telling, genuine, and affecting moment, with a wistful pathos.

While there is, true to the title, a considerable amount of cultural observation and analysis, the beating heart of Spying on America is Gaston’s love and respect for his family, his reckoning with his own changing realities, and his sheer, unfettered joy at the oddness of the world and the people it contains. It’s a warm, beautiful book.