I QUIT MY JOB at the New Yorker and drove around the country in my family's 1989 Honda. In the trunk I threw one sleeping bag, forty-eight AAA maps, and around sixty blank sketchbooks. I had a guide book under the seat listing every Motel 6 in the country (most nights, though, I slept in the passenger seat). I went to some predictable places, let some unpredictable places come to me. I drew sunbathers in Florida, the Ben & Jerry's factory in Vermont, forest fire fighters in Idaho, the Chicago Board of Trade.

I think I put 14,000 miles on the car. It took all summer. When I was done I put my experiences into this book. Being on the road, and not knowing where I was going or what I was going to find, was a great feeling.

REVIEWS

USA Today 1.31.97
"Almost everyone yearns to jump in a car and travel across the USA, actually seeing this gigantic country. Artist Elisha Cooper, 25, did exactly that. The charming result: Off the Road: An American Sketchbook. Using watercolors and simple ink drawings, Cooper chronicles his 50-day adventure with wit and whimsy."

Entertainment Weekly 1997
"The cross-country roadtrip has become a cliché—an obligatory rite of passage to which even Beavis and Butt-head must tediously submit. Enter the sweet, meandering countervoice of 25-year-old Cooper in this, his second book of sketches and observations . . . A–"

Elle 4.97
"Send your mind on a spring getaway with the serenely quirky account of Elisha Cooper's cross-country journey."

Published by:
Villard Books (Random House) 1996
ISBN 0-679-45586-8 $20