CH 3 Most of the Way Backstory

Most of the Way relates a trip home from college junior year at Yale for winter break. The commute home requires a sequence of train, bus and plane to complete, but this time McGhee misses the last plane out from Newark, NJ. He’s forced to join with the leftovers at the gate and rent a van to get to Pittsburgh in time for Christmas.

The crew on the journey include Johnny and Frankie (two connected gentleman, in the mafia sense, and perhaps otherwise), Pat (a Notre Dame student), Buzzy (a drummer from the band Crazyhorse), Bunny (his young companion), an Orthodox Rabbi, and McGhee. The funny thing about this story is that it’s largely true; the train journey adds a few fictional characters (Sergei and family), but otherwise events are very similar to the way they occurred to me. Other than the Rabbi choking on an apple, the van ride unfolded as told in the story.

The theme of the story is McGhee's growing sense of distance from home, and loss of his sense of self and foundation. I thought this story, as he's thrown in with "leftovers" was a good metaphor for this pivotal stage in McGhee's developing sense of displacement.