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ShareStephen Fry is perhaps the best person to write on America. He is a Brit who could have been born an American. (His father was offered a job at Princeton University in the 1950s but turned it down because he didn't want his kids to grow up as Americans.) Fry's medical history of manic depression only makes his credentials more appealing.
What better way to know America, a land of incompatible realities, than through the prism of euphoria and despair, the yin and yang of depression. The fact that Fry is in the US filming a BBC documentary only adds to the fun.
For a change, we've a document on America that threatens to be reliable, not on account of library research but from the author having driving up and down the continent crazily, and for the most part, with broken arm in sling.
Fry's message is simple: There are amazing towns in the US that detest the MNC and the average American may be a jerk to the world, but essentially, he/she is someone deeply in love with nature and the outdoors.
Fry goes after whales in a fishing boat in Alaska; meets a woman in Denver who designs
highly efficient slaughter houses for animals; chills out with Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman in a blues bar; hangs out with media moghul Ted Turner at his ranch; meets a ex-hippie couple in Kansas who have converted an abandoned US military missile launch complex into their home; has a firsthand view of the patriotic Texan's war on the Mexican immigrant, and isn't shy to admit he is not going to try skiing in one of the opulent resorts in Aspen Colorado.
This drive-through account of America is a cross between a Lonely Planet guide and a Borat film. Only, Fry's a Brit, which means jokes don't come to him as easily as Borat, and he doesn't go mad when he's in Vegas.
