Highway Kind collects images from Justine Kurland’s 2007 -2014 travels around the United States in a customized Astro Van, first with with her young son, Casper, then alone. Interspersed throughout are 8 very short stories by Lynn Tillman, character sketches, mostly, that add a bit flavor. The photographs were culled from a couple of bodies of work—This Train is Bound for Glory, and Sincere Auto Care (maybe others)—and move from trains in lush landscapes, to people that hop them and their campsites, to road trips, living on the road, auto repair and the grease and oil stains in parking lots. Coupled with Lynn Tillman’s text, the book presents a portrait of America, down by the tracks, on the road: beautiful, a little bit worn, full of possibility (possibly squandered), independent, distrustful, loyal, a little bit Emerson, a little bit PT Barnum, a little bit Billy from Easy Rider: people “who went looking for America, and couldn’t find it anywhere.”
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