Wayne Grady & Merilyn Simonds 
Breakfast at the Exit Cafe 
Travels Through America

What begins as a road trip through America soon becomes a journey of discovery into themselves and into the heart of the next-door neighbour they thought they knew. For
Wayne Grady , the thrill of landscape and history is tempered by memories of racism and his own family roots.
Merilyn Simonds , her ear tuned for the offbeat, finds curious echoes of the ex-pat promised land she grew up with. Together they travel against the tide of American history, following in the literary tire tracks of John Steinbeck, William Least Heat Moon, and Francis Trollope.




Grady and
Simonds experience the splendors of the Mojave Desert, the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River, and the bayou’s of Louisiana and the Outer Banks and contemplate the impact of geography on culture and of culture on landscape. They observe America from the outside, yet feel strangely at home.



Part travelogue, part exploration, part mid-winter love story told with wit and acuity by one of Canada’s most engaging literary couples,
Breakfast at the Exit Cafe is a journey into the reality behind the cultural myth that is America.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface 1

1 / Megalopolis, usa 3

2 / Astoria 28

3 / Highway 101 50

4 / Eureka! California 68

5 / Route 66 85

6 / Grand Canyon, Arizona 105

7 / The Marriage Road 130

8 / Escalante, Utah 153

9 / El Camino Real 177

10 / Jefferson, Texas 207

11 / Selmalabama 233

12 / Athens, Georgia 260

13 / The Outer Banks 282

14 / The Exit Cafe 307

Acknowledgements 317

Über den Autor

Wayne Grady is one of Canada’s finest science writers and a Governor General’s Award-winning translator. He has authored eleven books of nonfiction, translated fourteen novels, and edited more than a dozen anthologies of short stories and creative nonfiction.


Merilyn Simonds is the author of fourteen books, including the novel
The Holding, named a
New York Times Editor’s Choice, as well as the acclaimed works of literary nonfiction
The Lion in the Room Next Door and
The Convict Lover, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award.