"A wryly humorous chronicle of an odyssey which The Kid--the unnamed adolescent narrator—and his Uncle Dudley make across the country in an old Marmon touring car with seven men who share expenses. The events occur in the mid-1920s, 'the Homeric phase of the gas buggy era.' . . . In the context of American fictional heritage, the passengers float down the Big Muddy on the raft, refugees from the world of Aunt Sally. Dudley and The Kid, and even the car, are archetypes—the Uncle one had, or wishes on had had; the Huck Finn some were and all would like to have been; and the car one would most like to have 'tooled' down the open road."—David Madden, Wright Morris

"A brashly picaresque novel. . . . Fast-paced, delightfully humorous, sometimes Rabelaisian."—The Nation