All of the stories in The Gandy Dancer are touching and surprising, O'Henry twists to Jack London yarns. This delightful collection, full of beautiful imagery of land and skies and people, are stories of the USA told by an American girl, raised coast to coast, and north to south, who took off on her own at 17 to see what’s up. There’s persistant virtue to each adventure, triumph over adversity, as they reach heart and soul for a rare look at the lives of strangers and the paths they picked up for themselves. The classic independent spirit of the American adventurer is captured in each original tale, and the everlasting joy of charting new territory. Has anything, Sparhawk asks, got more punch to it than a road map?