Following in the footsteps of countless emigrants, Jonathan Raban takes ship for New York from Liverpool, to explore how succeeding generations of newcomers have fared in America.

He finds a country of massive contrasts, between the Street People and the Air People in New York, between small town and big city, between thrusting immigrants and down-at-heel native Americans.

Having outgrown his minute rented New York apartment, he heads for Guntersville, Alabama, where he settles for a few months as a good ol' boy in a cabin on the lake with a `rented' elderly lab.

From there he flies to the promise of Seattle, discovering its thrusting but alienated Asian community and thence to the watery lowlife of Key West. The result is a breathtaking observation of the States - a travelogue, a social history and a love letter in one.

"Jonathan Raban is simply one of the great writers of non-fiction at work today. I hold his work in awe." Robert Macfarlane

"Unfailingly witty and entertaining." Salman Rushdie