We were on a train, out of the way of our lives, any of us could tell anything we liked. We were, for the time being, just the story we told.In spite of the fact that her idea of travel is to stay at home with the phone off the hook, Jenny Diski takes a trip around the perimeter of the USA by train.Somewhat reluctantly she meets all kinds of characters, all bursting with stories to tell, and finds herself brooding about the marvellously familiar landscape of America, half-known already through film and television. Like the pulse of the train over the rails, the theme of the dying pleasures of smoking thrums through the book, along with reflections on the condition of solitude and the nature of friendship and memories triggered by her past time in psychiatric hospitals.