Jonathan Raban follows in the footsteps of Hector St John de Crevecouer - Mister Heartbreak and author of Letters from an American Farmer 1782)- and several million emigrants to discover America and the immigrant experience afresh.

It didn't matter that you lived on the sixth, the 16th or the 60th floor: access to the elevator was proof that your life had the buoyancy that was needed to stay afloat in a city where the ground was seen as the realm of failure and menace.

(p. 80)He leaves New York in distaste and proceeds in his hired car down to the Deep South, choosing to lie up for a time as a temporary resident of Guntersville, Alabama, a town which he immediately takes a liking to on one of his stopovers.

He decides to devote some time to meeting the residents and absorbing the local lifestyle in his rented lakeside cabin in the company of Gypsy, an old black lab bitch on loan to scare off the anonymous caller who keeps on making threatening calls in the middle of the night.

It was not to be trusted: the little hump-backed islet would suddenly sink beneath the surface and turn out to be a turtle; the dark hole in the sea would reveal itself - too late!