On a cold, gray day in 1991, a kid named Eddy Joe Cotton left home with nothing but a warm jacket, some well-worn boots, and a few crumpled dollar bills. His father had just fired him, not for the first time, but for the last. He didn’t see his father again for two years. But this is not the story of a runaway—it is a tale of an unorthodox road to adulthood. By taking to the trains, Eddy Joe Cotton learned the difficulty of life lived on the margins, the fading importance of a once-celebrated American folk hero, and the ultimate meaning of freedom.

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5 Responses to “Hobo”

1. Craig Connell says:

   November 22, 2009 at 12:00 am

   I really have no interest in this subject of hobos, to be frank, but about a week ago I saw this book lying on a library table and started skimming it. It looked good. Hey, for free, I’ll give it a shot. Well, just five minutes ago I ordered it from an independent seller. I want this part in my collection, and would like to read it again. That should tell you how entertaining I found this strange book.

   “Strange,” it is, indeed. It’s the colorful style of writing, the descriptions that “Eddy Joe Cotton” uses that caught my attention and kept it for the length of the book. In fact, it was hard put it down, even though I disagree with most things he said.

   It is simply a bizarre account of young kid’s first month of riding the rails, eating out of rusty tin cans, surviving the elements and meeting a whole bunch of characters along the way. It’s humor, sadness and adventure all rolled into one uniquely-told account. “Hobo” definitely is different, and worth the read, especially if you appreciate a man who knows how to use words.

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2. C. Sellers says:

   January 8, 2009 at 12:00 am

   Hobo is one of those rare books that actually angered me. It’s a schizophrenic piece of work, the first half being part “On the Road”, part “Huck Finn” the second half “Penthouse Forum” and Comic book. I wouldn’t have been so disgusted by the second half if the first half hadn’t held such promise. The first half is filled with well drawn, interesting characters and thoughtful inner dialogue, and it is as if he got halfway through and said, “Damn, nothing’s happening, let’s throw in some drug dealers and a methed-out stripper and make this interesting.”

   From about hundred plus pages on it reads like a 14 year old’s masturbatory material. For some reason he can draw interesting fully fleshed male characters but all his female characters are vulgar misogynistic cartoon characters. His meth addled stripper character, Misty, is souless 2 dimensional object of masturbatory desire with nothing there. His adventures with her turn into a laundry list of the boringly banal and yet vulgar. Compare this with say, Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” or “‘Tis”, or Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” which is filled with similar adolescent male urges and objectification of women, and yet, beneath all that testosterone fueled writing there is a there, there, under Mr. Cotton’s writings there is nothing. It’s hollow.

   I think he began with a fascinating travelogue something that I could have read for hundreds and hundreds of pages more, meeting the fellow tramps, riding the rails, seeing the Mexican field works or the rednecks populating the tracks, that part was spot on and nearly brilliant, transporting the reader into his rank, soiled clothes. The second half was a souless penthouse letter with nothing to redeem it. He recounts in the epilogue for a mere two paragraphs a fascinating Indian ceremony he took part in and yet devotes a hundred or more pages to the dreck of the second part.

   Before you read this, read “You Can’t Win” by Jack Black a far superior work on the life of the Hobo.

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3. M. Bell says:

   October 14, 2008 at 12:00 am

   This book is an excellent introduction to an american institution known as hoboing or “riding the rails.” In it a young man recounts his experiences hopping freight trains in the western U.S. The stories he relates are very interesting and from the heart. From things like avoiding the “bulls” (railroad guards) to scrounging for food to the romance of being completely free, it really delivers in terms of vicarious adventure. Anybody interested in reading on this subject will find what they are looking for between these pages. Besides being interesting and engaging the writer has the gift of the poet and conveys his story through very nice prose. If you’re looking for something completely fresh and different this book will be worth your read also.

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4. D. Anderson says:

   August 16, 2008 at 12:00 am

   this book is not a look into the life of a hobo. its just a story of one trip and his views from it. its a good quick read if you are a tramp or hobo, even if just at heart.

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5. Hollythedylanfan says:

   April 26, 2008 at 12:00 am

   I loved the way the book started. It had great potential, but then he began to sound as if he were writing from examples he read in Kerouac 101. I wish it would have been a little better, but it was still a good beach read.

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