Not since On the Road has a book been more thoroughly of the road.
Unlike Kerouac's novel, however, this book was literally written on the
road in Gudding's own car, on pad and paper while driving. Rhode Island
Notebook is the handwritten account of one driver's journey to happiness
in the face of grief. This book-length poem chronicles the break-up of a
family and the separation of a father and daughter, while at the same
time recording the rise of jingoism in the United States in the moments
before and during the invasion of Iraq.