Nathaniel Rich wrote a feature article in this past weekend's Voyages issue about long-distance train travel. Rich is the author of the novel "The Mayor's Tongue"; his second novel will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux this spring. Last year he wrote cover stories for the magazine about a Japanese scientist who studies jellyfish and the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
Did you come up with the idea for this story after riding long-distance trains for non-journalistic reasons?
Though I'm not a "foamer," I love trains for many reasons and I take them when possible. In the past year I've had several long trips on the Crescent Line, which runs between New Orleans, where I live, and New York. I had the idea to write the story after an eventful ride down to New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Sandy.
I spent that entire trip of about 26 hours (I boarded in D.C.) with three other passengers. Jorge, a car mechanic from Long Beach, N.Y., had lost his house and all of his tools in the storm. He had left the city with all of his belongings in a single suitcase and was planning to start a new life in Houston. Mark, 38, had never traveled outside of New Jersey, but he had recently split with his wife because she wanted to have a threesome, which he was not comfortable with. The problem was that, after the train departed the station, the friend that Mark was visiting in Mississippi sent a text asking Mark to take part in a threesome with his wife. Mark was really bugging out. I had to talk him down. The last member of our clique was Asa Rodger, an actor and musician who was in the middle of a several-week Amtrak "social media" tour around the country (Los Angeles to New York to New Orleans to Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., and back to Los Angeles) in the hope of increasing his number of Twitter followers. That trip would have made for a good essay but I wasn't taking notes.
It sounds like both trips were full of characters. Did you weed out all the boring people?
There is something fascinating about every human being. The question is how much they're willing to divulge. There were a few other passengers I would have liked to have included in the piece: Diana and her 13-year-old son Austin, who sat across from me for the entire trip, had been to only three states in their lives: Illinois, Mississippi and Florida. They were moving to Bakersfield, Calif., to join Diana's husband, who had found a job on an oil derrick. Austin served as the babysitter of Sincere — a 2-year-old boy I write about — for most of the trip. Austin was obviously anxious about moving to California but he was trying to play it cool. I had breakfast one morning with Maria Creamer, who had worked for Amtrak for about 30 years; her daughter, a former Miss Louisiana who placed third in the Miss America competition, was friends with Shaquille O'Neal at L.S.U. She knew even more about Amtrak than Steve King, a train buff I write about. And there was a charming older couple, the Howards, who have been married for more than 50 years. In their retirement they work as unpaid volunteers in different national parks all over the country.
There were also the conductors, who told stories about celebrities who took the Amtrak incognito, like John Travolta and John Amos. Whoopi Goldberg is a big Amtrak supporter but I think it's more difficult for her to travel incognito. One conductor said he once met Michael Jackson when he booked an entire sleeper car for himself.
Long time frame, enclosed space — a train ride sounds like an ideal reporting environment. Was it difficult to get people to talk?
It is ideal — your subjects can't escape, or slam a door in your face. And you can play the long game. Even if a person won't talk to you for, say, the first 20 hours, they might change their mind by hour 38. I don't remember anyone who refused to be interviewed. As someone on the train said to me, when you take a long-distance train ride, you expect the unexpected. A guy walking around doing interviews with people is hardly the most unusual thing happening.
Did you have to barter your story for any of theirs?
Most people thought I was writing a college essay, even after I identified myself as a writer for The Times Magazine. I get that a lot. It helps — people are more willing to talk. That's why I always shave before I have to do any reporting.
Did you learn anything more about what awaited Michelle Love (the young woman escaping New Orleans) or Selena Hernandez (the mother of three who was starting over)? Or is the point of train travel that the stories stay on the train?
Michelle Love has not responded to messages, but incredibly, according to her Facebook page, she got engaged eight days after the train ride. I'm assuming the boyfriend followed her to Houston and proposed on her 21st birthday. I guess she had found the love of her life after all, and just didn't realize it. I did speak with Matthew Carr, who had been sitting behind Selena Hernandez. They speak regularly and have plans to visit each other.
Did you take the train on your return trip to New Orleans?
Nope!
Once back in the privacy of your own home, did you attempt to "catch the wall"?
I'm catching the wall this second.
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