American Rambler: On the Trail with Johnny Appleseed

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off into the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it.

“Rollicking, heartfelt. . . . Made me feel the kind of wonder and hope I’ve been longing for.” —John Green, author of Everything Is Tuberculosis

As a child, Isaac Fitzgerald was captivated by Johnny Appleseed, drawn to the legend by family ties, his father’s larger-than-life stories, and a shared restlessness to leave home and discover what lay beyond.

In American Rambler, he sets out on a year-long journey to follow Appleseed’s path, walking (okay, sometimes driving, and at one point, even floating downstream) from Massachusetts to Indiana. On this journey, Fitzgerald turns a childhood fascination into a profound reckoning of loss and grief, ritual and faith, grimy gas station bathrooms and scenic apple picking. He is followed by a mysterious creature, camps in hostile environments, trespasses more than once, and is warmed by the generosity of strangers at every turn.

A moving blend of memoir, history, and travelogue, American Rambler is at once an ode to the American heartland, a meditation on escaping the breakneck pace of modern life, and a clear-eyed look at the myths—often violent, sometimes hopeful, frequently romanticized—at the very core of American identity and history.

ISAAC FITZGERALD is the author of back-to-back instant New York Times bestsellers Dirtbag, Massachusetts and American Rambler. He is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate and the co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos. Fitzgerald has won a New England Book Award, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, and an IACP Award. He is a frequent guest on The Today Show, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The Guardian, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives with his wife and their two dogs on the North Fork of Long Island.