Reviews: 'Roadfood,' by Jane and Michael Stern, and 'Rabbit Cake,' by Annie Hartnett

Roadfood

By Jane and Michael Stern. (Clarkson Potter, 463 pages, $22.99.)

I disliked flying well before the TSA started invasive pat-downs and airlines charged you extra just to secure a seat, never mind baggage add-ons that can run up to $100. So I was thrilled to pick up the 10th edition of "Roadfood," long a bible of those of us who like road trips with a purpose: not to get there, but to enjoy getting there.

Having lived in seven states and traveled through most of the rest, I find that many guidebooks highlight trite or well-known landmarks that require reservations well in advance, which completely defies the spontaneous road trip experience. But not so with "Roadfood." This well-indexed guide takes you to corners of America the Beautiful and Hungry that you'd never find on your own.

While I've had fabulous "green or red chile?" stuffed sopapillas at Garcia's Kitchen in Albuquerque, N.M. (listed in the guide), this portable softcover book also directs readers to the lunch counter at Duran Central Pharmacy, where you get a breathtaking view with your awesome enchiladas.

In New Orleans, you might expect Acme Oyster House to gain entry to this curated list, and it does — best fried crawfish po'boy ever, if you don't mind waiting (dare I say in the bar) a couple of hours for a table. But Central Grocery also garners a spot, boasting to be the birthplace of muffalettas (think Schlotzsky's on steroids).

I could go on and on, through Colorado and Texas and Kansas and Florida, and even Oregon (although I did once get chili that was made with pork and beans and, seriously, topped with Velveeta, at a historic tavern in Eugene).

Bon appétit!

GINNY GREENE

By Annie Hartnett. (Tin House Books, 344 pages, $15.95.)

Sleepwalking is the devil that haunts the beleaguered Babbitt family in Annie Hartnett's "Rabbit Cake."

Well, sleep-swimming, to be exact.

Her death (could it have been on purpose? We never learn) sends her already fragile family into a tailspin. Dad loses himself in his meaningless work (carpet sales); older daughter Lizzie's sleepwalking spirals out of control, as does her life, and younger daughter Elvis (yeah, I know) struggles to keep the fracturing family together while trying to make sense of her mother's death.

Told mostly though the eyes of 10-year-old Elvis, the book is by turns heart-wrenching, sweetly innocent and a bit puzzling. (Do we really need to know that Eva Rose has affairs with almost all the men in their small Alabama town?)

While it has the off-kilter family dynamic of Karen Russell's Pulitzer-Prize nominated novel "Swamplandia!" "Rabbit Cake" pushes the quirk factor a bit too hard, and it sometimes strays into the silly.

But it doesn't overwhelm what turns out to be a story of a family's realistic redemption and a child coming to terms with searing loss. As Elvis finally learns, "Death will always feel unexplained; we will never be ready for it, and you just have to do the best you can with what you have left."

CONNIE NELSON