Writer goes from one end of nation to other to see what holds it together; ruralites stand out

Philip Caputo, a novelist and former reporter for the Chicago Tribune, where he won a Pulitzer Prize, set off across the country on a four-month trip -- visiting mostly rural areas -- to interview Americans about what they feel holds the country together. What he found was that most people, especially those in rural areas, felt a sense of family and community was the binding force in the country, Kevin Nance reports for the Tribune. Caputo's finding can be read in The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean. (Random House photo)

Caputo said of ruralites: "They were less likely to identify something abstract, like our system of government, or the government itself, or the U.S. Constitution or whatever. They were much more likely to point to their town, their family or the neighbors, all of them pulling together in hard times and sharing good times," Nance reports. Other topics people wanted to discuss included immigration, jobs and politics.

Caputo said he got the idea for the book in 1996 when he visited a remote island off the Alaskan coast, Nance writes. Caputo said, "I happened to go by a school where most of the students were Eskimo children. They were pledging allegiance to the flag, and it struck me that they were doing so under the same government as the children of Cuban immigrants down in Key West, where I had been earlier in the year. It just astonished me that in a country so vast those children were under the same government, spoke the same language and were united in the same kind of society. Obviously there are cultural differences between the two, but the American society is the same. And I just thought to myself, what holds a place so vast and diverse together?" (Read more) The map, from Caputo's website, details his journey from Key West north; click on it for a larger version.