By Libby Stille, Publicist
We talk to Shing Yin Khor in today’s episode of The Lerner Podcast. Shing is the author of the graphic memoir The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito.
As a child growing up in Malaysia, Shing Yin Khor had two very different ideas of what “America” meant. The first looked a lot like Hollywood, full of beautiful people, sunlight, and freeways. The second looked more like The Grapes of Wrath—a nightmare landscape filled with impoverished people, broken-down cars, barren landscapes, and broken dreams. This book chronicles Shing’s solo journey (small adventure-dog included) along the iconic Route 66, beginning in Santa Monica and ending up Chicago. What begins as a road trip ends up as something more like a pilgrimage in search of an American landscape that seems forever shifting and forever out of place.
★”Khor takes that ‘feeling of desperately searching for something better, for a new start,’ and adapts it to their own ‘pilgrimage’ as immigrant and artist traveling historic Route 66 . . . in whimsical full-color detail.”—starred, Booklist
The Lerner Podcast with Shing Yin Khor
Read a transcript of the interview.
Shing’s road trip playlist
Read Shing’s essay about their playlist on FreakSugar.
Episode links
“‘American Owned’: A Sign of Patriotism or Xenophobia?,” Wall Street Journal