Nostalgic scenes and quaint characters. That’s what Theodore Dreiser expects to find when he sets off from New York City on a road trip with friend Franklin Booth to explore the Indiana of his childhood. What he finds is a rural countryside on the cusp of dramatic social and technological changes. In A Hoosier Holiday (1916), a forerunner to the American road novel, reality competes with nostalgia as writer Dreiser and illustrator Booth offer insightful meditations on rural America at the beginning of the 20th century.