Spy on the Bus: Memoir of a Company Rat Book

I came across this book in the special advertising pages in The New York Review of Books for independent press publications, and wrangled a swap with the publisher for one of my own books. It probably wasn't worth it, because I never did finish this book. I gave it three stars anyway because it is, in its peculiar way, and, almost despite itself, occasionally very interesting. Margean Gladysz worked as a company spy on various bus lines back in the 1940s. In those days, passengers could flag the bus down on the road and paid the driver the fare. Obviously, the driver could (and often did) pocket the money himself, since there was no way to prove he didn't... unless someone reported him. Hence the bus spy, a regular job in those days. In the forties, there was no Interstate system, and, in the Midwest, where all this takes place, the roads might not even be paved. The letters that Gladysz wrote to her mother and father, one every day, since phone calls were too expensive, details the traveler's life: what her hotel rooms were like, what she ate in the diners and other eateries and what she paid for it; and what she saw out the bus windows. Unfortunately, there is far, far too much company gossip and a bit too much patting oneself on the back... all perfectly fine in a letter, but not in a book. Still, for anyone wanting a unique taste of Americana, this book can hardly be beat. And you'll weep when you read all the good stuff she ate, and for pocket change. No fast food then.