Roads to Quoz

I'm still reading the biography of Williams James and Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun, but I stumbled across Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, by William Least Heat-Moon. Apparently Least Heat-Moon burst unto the literary scene a few years ago with his first book Blue Highways; I had not heard of him until today when I picked up Quoz for two bucks at a yard sale/garage sale. I have read the first 50 pages or so and I have to say I'm impressed. Maybe not great literature, but a great read, and about a subject I perhaps enjoy most: meandering travel.

Least Heat-Moon appears to enjoy using as many different words as possible; I don't know if it comes naturally or if he has to work at it. Occasionally it sounds affected. Is that the right idiom? At times his use of certain words feel forced or as if he checks the dictionary periodically to look for a different word to use. I don't know. If that's his normal conversational style, it's very interesting.

But calling a prison a "gated community" was priceless.