Barefoot Gringo by George Bowering and Spying on America by Bill Gaston

Travel enriches, both the mind and life, everyone knows. Here two senior-level Canadian writers retrace bracing encounters with our two southern neighbours. Bowering writes casually of his trips to Mexico over many decades, and Gaston writes even more casually about a road trip with his two adult sons in the early days of the COVID pandemic from Vancouver to Tabor, Iowa, and back again.

In the final pages of Barefoot Gringo, Bowering writes about how he bought a copy of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927) in 1964 for his “first wife’s ‘book of the month’ club from the University of Alberta at Calgary’s bookstore for $1.40.” This anecdote is typical of the perspective Bowering brings to his subject. He is now 90. His travelogue speaks of his need for wheelchairs and travel aids, as well as decades old tales of food, wine, dusty roads, and ocean breezes.

His response to Woolf may surprise you. He says while reading the book he kept “raising my head and my gaze and asking aloud, ‘So what?’ There had been too many times when I read this prose and saw why Hemingway was writing the way he did.” Readers may be tempted to turn this question around on Bowering’s own prose. So what? And what is the point about Hemingway, anyway? There’s a whiff of critique here, but it is an overconfident and casual one, especially when dismissing a modernist classic. His reader response is no doubt genuine. Unfortunately, so is his affected attitude.

Readers may be tempted to turn this question around on Bowering’s own prose. So what? And what is the point about Hemingway, anyway?

And it’s that attitude that carries the reader through the book. George writing about George observing the world, his friends, his people, his memories, Mexico. You may find the observations interesting, and you may not. You may confront this “So what?” question more frequently that you desire. The prose rambles as the action rambles. The point never quite emerges, even as Bowering tells of his near death and the admirable life force to press on. He has had a long and engaging life, and Mexico has been a consistent and enriching part of it. Okidoke.

The point of Gaston’s book is more pointed and transparent. Why travel to Tabor, Iowa? Because the town was the westernmost hub of the anti-slavery Underground Railroad, and among the people who founded the town in 1852 were Gaston’s great-great-great grandparents, George and Maria. In 1857-58, abolitionist John Brown wintered in the town as he made plans to overthrow slavery by fomenting violent revolution.

The pacifistic Gastons and the militaristic Brown shared a common goal but supported different means. In the end, Brown was asked to leave the town because of his violent activities, then in 1859 his group attacked Harpers Ferry federal arsenal in Virginia (now West Virginia). His goal was to capture weapons and arm slaves to spark rebellion. The attack failed and Brown was captured by U.S. marines and quickly hanged. His actions, however, ratcheted up tensions between slave-holding and free states, increased political polarization, and led directly to the U.S. Civil War (1861-65).

The Gaston boys travel to connect with their ancestors, and along the way they contemplate life in America today, another highly polarized era. Thus the title, Spying on America, though there’s nothing cloak and dagger about their activities as they power down highways and byways in their rented muscle car. Gaston concludes everyone they encountered in Red State America was nice, but also notes they were almost all white, including the entire town of Tabor, except for the road gangs they passed on the sides of the highways and the help in the motels and restaurants. The analysis of this situation is not drilled down much more than that. These spies are not intelligence analysts.

The analysis of this situation is not drilled down much more than that. These spies are not intelligence analysts.

The Gastons spend an afternoon with writer Thomas McGuane – and this section in the book is as significant as the entire visit to Tabor – where they are told about McGuane’s many famous neighbours, the Dude, Jeff Bridges, among others. They also learn more about Marilynne Robinson’s link to Tabor, which served as the model for the town and source of the story of her novel, Gilead. Gaston notes he wrote to Robinson, noting how her novel included members of his family, and Robinson responded with modest interest.

Towards the end of the book, Gaston writes how he decided to turn the trip into a book, and he essays on “What is it about?” Perhaps the question is addressed too late. Readers may also confront Bowering’s question, “So what?” The book progresses in chapters recounting the events of the trip day by day. The format doesn’t afford much opportunity for delving and reflection. It involves, instead, a lot of searching for places to eat and sleep.

Ultimately, the Gaston boys enjoyed a good ramble, tasted Dog Slobber Ale, learned some history attached to their family, bonded as father-and-sons, escaped the land of the wild and gun-happy alive and grateful. Enriched? Maybe. Readers get to spy on the family along the way.

George Bowering is a major Canadian literary figure and one of the most prolific writers in the country. He is a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Award and has been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize for Poetry, the BC Book Prize, the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, and the BC National Non-Fiction Prize, among others. In November 2002 he was appointed the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Bowering is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has also been awarded the Order of British Columbia, the Order of the Unified Heart, and the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

Born and raised in the Okanagan Valley, George Bowering came to prominence in the 1960s, first as a founding editor of TISH at UBC, publisher of his first book. His third book was published bilingually in Mexico by El Corno Emplumado. He lives in Vancouver and is professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University.

Bill Gaston was born in Tacoma, Washington, and grew up in Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen as a teenager to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. He has lived and worked, mostly as an itinerant scholar, all across Canada, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Toronto, Vancouver and, finally, Victoria. Gaston is the author of numerous books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, including The World, winner of the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction; Gargoyles, winner of the Victoria Book Prize and finalist for a Governor General’s Award; Mount Appetite, finalist for the Giller Prize; and the memoir Just Let Me Look at You, finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize. He lives, grows food, and writes, with the writer Dede Crane, on Gabriola Island, in the Salish Sea.

Barefoot Gringo:

Publisher: UBC Press (May 12, 2026)
Paperback 5.5″ x 8.5″ | 206 pages
ISBN: 9780774890786

Spying on America:

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions (April 7, 2026)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 248 pages
ISBN: 9781773104652

Michael Bryson

Michael Bryson has been reviewing books since the 1990s in publications such as The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Paragraph Magazine, Id Magazine, and Quill & Quire. His short story collections include Thirteen Shades of Black and White (1999) and The Lizard and Other Stories (2009). His fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and other anthologies. His story Survival is available as a Kindle single. From 1999-2018, he oversaw 78 issues of fiction, poetry, reviews, author interviews, essays, and other features at The Danforth Review. He lives in Scarborough, Ontario, and blogs at Art/Life: Scribblings.