Author Reg Spittle

A 50-State Journey to Rediscover American Democracy

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Ryan Bernsten’s 50 States of Mind: A Journey to Rediscover American Democracy is not the book I expected.

It is advertised as a followup to Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville’s nine-month tour of America in 1831 that examined why democracy worked here. That trip resulted in the classic two-volume Democracy in America, required reading in political science programs across the United States.

Bernsten’s five-month tour to all 50 states is a lighter look than I expected, but weighs in with answers to serious questions about the direction of America. Are we hopelessly divided? Or are there common threads that bind us? How do Americans really feel?

Bernsten drives his Prius to large cities, small towns and places between. He listens, learns, and relates the stories and moods of Americans, from civic leaders to the homeless. Laughs and entertaining vignettes are included aplenty.

50 States is a story of hope, rooted in the author’s open-minded approach. A member of Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff in the 2016 presidential race, Bernsten hears a plethora of reasons voters were drawn to the Trump campaign. He wonders why more of us don’t listen to folks who have views different from ours.

The book is an adventure story and a report of his personal journey. Traveling on a tight budget, he stays with friends, relatives, and strangers. He couch surfs. A catalogue of his hosts would make interesting reading on its own. He is alone much of the way, but his passenger seat is taken for a while by a prospective love interest. Later, a former college roommate joins him, breaking up times that he admits sometimes turn lonely.

Bernsten studied creative writing at Northwestern University and Oxford University, where he earned a master’s degree. He has won awards as a playwright and is now senior managing editor at The Trevor Project, which works to end suicide among LGBTQ young people.

He admits he was burning out toward the end of his journey, but, as a reader, I wanted him to slow down and conduct more random interviews.

The trip and book were brilliant ideas that convinced Ryan Bernsten and this reader that there are reasons for hope for democracy in America.

Walking With Sam: A Moving Father-Son Story

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Shattered by 100-degree weather, a tired body, and the frustration of trying to break through to a 19-year-old, Andrew McCarthy yells at this son to stop walking in the middle of the road, then wishes he could be more patient.

In Walking With Sam, the actor and best-selling author writes that he is annoyed with himself for falling into the role of parent too often. But, what’s a father to do when your kid is ignoring common sense on a road in Spain?

Earlier, at home in New York City in 2021, McCarthy, hungry for time with Sam, asks his son if he will go for a walk with him–in Spain, on the 500-mile Camino de Santiago. In a moment of weakness, or perhaps strength, Sam agrees, and his dad books tickets before the kid/adult changes his mind. Two days later, they are in St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, the starting point for many who walk the pilgrimage path over the Pyrenees Mountains and across northern Spain to Santiago de Compestella.

McCarthy, who doesn’t want to be known primarily as one of the Brat Pack actors of the 1980s, writes with raw emotion, honesty, and simple eloquence. Walking With Sam is a personal story, but it is also a Camino book, sprinkled with history and descriptions of life on the Camino. They carry their stuff in backpacks and stay in private rooms rather than albergue dormitories.

I wanted even more depth from the father-son dialogue, but I expect that they may have felt the same way during the trek. There are melt downs as well as laughs. They form relationships with fellow pilgrims and, most of the time Andrew McCarthy can be a regular guy, not recognized in Spain for his acting fame. (Sam has also acted professionally, most notably in the TV series, Dead to Me.)

Andrew McCarthy is fortunate that his son was willing to spend so much time with him. Conversely, Sam benefits from a father who values his son so much that he will drop everything for weeks to go on a trip with him. Although it will probably take time for the experience to settle with both men, Sam blurts out his evaluation at the end of the Camino.

It was Andrew’s second time on the Camino, the first coming 25 years earlier. He wrote about that walk and several other adventures in The Longest Way Home, published in 2013. It is an engrossing story.