Every Highway: Riding Shotgun in the Big Rigs.

Geoff Cragg is a tenured instructor in the Faculty of Faculty of
Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

Every Highway is reporter Dave Feschuk’s account of today’s long-distance trucking industry in North America. Based on a number of rides as passenger, the book spans the continent—from ice roads in the Northwest Territories to the Mexican border—and describes a similarly broad range of people—from a female driver always accompanied by her dog, to a safety inspector who relies on charm rather than a Kevlar vest, to a born-again truck-stop preacher. Feschuk admits in the introduction, “I am no trucker. I am a sportswriter.” But this deficiency doesn’t seem to matter. His genuine fascination with and curiosity about the lives of truckers makes him a sympathetic and entertaining companion.

This book is not an impartial scholarly discussion of the trucking industry; it is an admittedly biased, anecdotal, and selective account of what it’s like to be in the cab of a big truck for long hauls. Feschuk admits that he has been drawn to the life ever since his cousin Lo became a driver. Nonetheless, the book has a serious purpose: “to mine [truckers’] stories and probe their feelings, because their work is more important than most people know.” And it investigates a number of serious issues: the allure and romance of the trucking life in popular culture, the impact of deregulation and NAFTA on the industry, the growing technological control imposed on drivers, the economic and physical challenges of the life, and its rapid gentrification. Perhaps the single most important issue that the book leads to, though it doesn’t attempt to answer it, is whether the trucking industry in its present configuration is sustainable in economic, environmental, or human terms.

Though it has a serious side, overall this is an entertaining text. Feschuk has an excellent ear and his accounts of the conversations in the cabs, largely conveyed through direct quotes, capture the individual voices of the men and women he’s riding with. This is an engaging and provocative investigation of a neglected topic, and deserves popular acclaim.