"Exquisite.… Murphy can cross class boundaries as smoothly as changing lanes on the highway.… Readers even passingly familiar with the burgeoning literary genre we might call hillbilly elegiacs… will find Murphy’s more nuanced perspective refreshing."
"An adventure story and… a peek into an occupation whose practitioners we see rolling down the highway."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Jim Higgins
"The Long Haul is funny and sad and wise, and it shows us the lives of people we depend on."
"It’s a hoot to ride along with Murphy."
Seattle Times - Irene Wanner
"The Long Haul beguil[es] readers with wit, wisdom and observations born from decades in transit."
Denver Post - Jason Blevins
"Like a Mark Twain behind the wheel, [Murphy] takes us on the road coast to coast and city to city with a voice that’s honest and direct and sometimes even poetic."
"Rich [and] insightful.… A well-written story that rarely slows down."
Los Angeles Times - Nathan Deuel
A son of Cos Cob, Conn., and an almost-graduate of Colby College, Murphy can cross class boundaries as smoothly as changing lanes on the highway…Readers even passingly familiar with the burgeoning literary genre we might call hillbilly elegiacs—a.k.a. white people with some understanding of working-class life explaining American class dynamics to white people who are clueless—will find Murphy's more nuanced perspective refreshing…[A] terrific memoir…Murphy brings [exquisite detail] to scenes of packing up houses and negotiating tricky terrain in his truck. And even better than the stories of the moving jobs are moments of observation that say an enormous amount about human nature in just a few words.
The New York Times Book Review - Meghan Daum
The Long Haul can be almost shamefully enjoyable, allowing readers to have their fix of "fabulous-life-of" porn and class outrage, too…There's something occasionally mannered and artificial about his dialogue, which tends toward the screwball or the Socratic, depending on the moment. (Though at its best, it's kind of great, as if Hepburn and Tracy were handed their own CBs)…What redeems this book, time and time again, are the stories Murphy tells. My goodness, how astonishing they are, and how moving, and how funny, and how just plain weird. Wait until you get to the one about the unlikely polygamist. Or the client who dies, mid-move.
The New York Times - Jennifer Senior
"The Long Haul delivers because it is a survey of a culture fused to a working man’s memoir—and Murphy, smartly, avoids sentiment and lazy comparisons."
The Paris Review - Jeffery Gleaves
"Like priests, movers shepherd us through life’s transitions; like cowboys, truckers drive the roads we’ll never know. Both see America in ways the rest of us don’t. In The Long Haul , Murphy . . . bring[s] us into his semi-mythic world."
The New Yorker - Joshua Rothman
"Finn Murphy . . . bring[s] readers along for a rollicking ride through a trucker's world and [provides] an insider's eye, pairing it with an involving series of encounters."
"The Long Haul can be almost shamefully enjoyable, allowing readers to have their fix of ‘fabulous-life-of’ porn and class outrage, too. . . . [T]he stories Murphy tells . . . my goodness, how astonishing they are, and how moving, and how funny."
New York Times Book Review - Jennifer Senior
"There's nothing semi about Finn Murphy's trucking tales of The Long Haul ."
Vanity Fair - Sloane Crosley
11/01/2017
Author Finn Murphy started driving on a college break. Now he's passed 50, and he's still on the road as a long-distance mover. Narrator Danny Campbell handles Murphy's voice the way listeners would want Murphy to handle their furniture. It's both tough and gently soft-spoken, with a hint of weariness from long experience. Murphy's stories share the dangers of life on the road; he opens by discussing all the possibilities for jackknifing on a mountain pass. Elsewhere, listeners will laugh over a tree-toppling disaster early in his career and hear the plaintive cry of a dying piano. He also discusses rivalries among truckers and decries the march toward automation. Listeners just might take this audiobook along when they go on their own road trips. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-04-04
