Norwood by Charles Portis (1966)

In which Charles Portis hilariously and tenderly sums up the American situation:

"They shimmied on down the road. At the first stop, a roadside grocery store, Norwood got a quart of milk and had the grocer make him a couple of baloney and cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise. He leaned on the meat box and ate and watched the bread man do his stuff. The bread man carried old bread out and brought new bread in. He squatted and rearranged it on the rack. Norwood noticed that he was poking finger holes in the competitors' loaves. Their eyes met, just for a second, and the bread man looked away. He tried to recover by doing peculiar things with his hands, as though he had a funny way of arranging bread. Norwood was not deceived. The bread man had no gift for pantomime and he did not seem to consider that from a range of eight or nine feet it is easy enough to tell whether someone is or is not punching holes in bread.

He said nothing about it and neither did Norwood. But back on the road the guilty knowledge hung heavy over the conversation."


Overlook Press site for Norwood.