ROAD FEVER by Tom Cahill (Vintage:...

ROAD FEVER by Tom Cahill (Vintage: $10.). In 1987, Tom Cahill and Garry Sowerby drove the 15,000 miles from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay in a nerve-racking 23 1/2 days to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Although they sarcastically describe their trip as “another victory for man and machine against time and the elements,” neither man ever pretended the journey was anything but a stunt designed to make money and achieve a rather dubious distinction. Cahill’s gonzo travelogue is agreeably cynical but refreshingly free of the in-your-face macho posturing that too often typifies the genre. Most of the book is devoted to the hazards of travel in South and Central America; the trip through the United States and Canada gets short shrift. The well-maintained roads offered fewer challenges, and the author seems to have tired of the whole business. Although Cahill’s story is quite entertaining, the reader can’t help wondering why the editors at Vintage would publish a travel book without a single map and why no one bothered to correct Cahill’s description of Eva Peron’s assumption of power in Argentina in 1974--22 years after her death.