Motor Maids Across America

"On one hand, the book is a quick read, and yet what Padgett does with his sentences is to be savored ... He takes a deep pleasure in the words, their sounds and variable meanings ... All of it is marked by the ease of Padgett's writing, his unrivaled directness." --John Yau, Hyperallergic

When the spinster Miss Helen Campbell sets off in a motorcar called "The Comet" with four high school girls, their cross-country car ride promises to fulfill their singular dreams of grand vistas. Unprepared for the ensuing plane crash, a stolen car, a trip to The Singing Ranch, encounters with cryptic individuals, a painting by Henri Rousseau, a train robber on the lam, an Italian village located in California, a talking door and the assistance of cowboys, Blaise Cendrars, Indians and mountain outlaws who turn into statues, the redoubtable Motor Maids are compelled to dream even larger.
Ron Padgett (born 1942) grew up in Tulsa and has lived mostly in New York City since 1960. Among his many honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters poetry award, the Shelley Memorial Award and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Padgett's How Long was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry. His Collected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Los Angeles Times prize for the best poetry book of 2013. In addition to being a poet, he is the translator of Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy and Blaise Cendrars. His poems appeared in Jim Jarmusch's film Paterson.