The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road (Compact Disc)
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
June 2017 Indie Next List
“This memoir of a life spent driving trucks full of strangers' personal belongings across the country is the book I didn't know I needed. Finn Murphy writes engaging slice-of-life stories about his time as a long-haul truck driver while also showing the changes in the trucking industry and American life in the decades he's spent pulling thousands of pounds up mountains, through storms, and across plains. Trucking is a solitary life, but Murphy grabbed me like a friend and took me with him on his journey.”
— Jamie Thomas (E), Women & Children First, Chicago, IL
Summer 2018 Reading Group Indie Next List
“A thoroughly enjoyable memoir of the romance and reality of a life on the road—specifically, a long-haul mover, or ‘bedbugger,’ in the terms of the trade—that manages to be as wise about class and culture in modern America as any academic treatise.”
— Tom Nissley, Phinney Books, Seattle, WA
Description
More than thirty years ago, Finn Murphy dropped out of college to become a trucker. Since then he's covered hundreds of thousands of miles packing, loading, and hauling people's belongings all over America. Murphy whisks listeners down the I-95 Powerlane, across the Florida Everglades, in and out of the truck stops of the Midwest, and through the steep grades of the Rocky Mountains. He tells funny, poignant, and haunting stories of the people he moves: a hoarder in New Hampshire; a Virginia homeowner raging when Murphy's truck accidentally runs down a stand of trees; a widow rushing her archaeologist husband's remains and relics to a Navajo burial ceremony in New Mexico. Brimming with personality and great characters, The Long Haul explores the appeal of manual labor and shows what happens behind the scenes when we call the movers.