No matter the epithet, when applied to Americans it is bound to stick. From gross obesity to chronic anorexia, from seven foot six inches to three foot nothing, from crass stupidity to sheer genius, from opulent wealth to dire poverty, the American is it. There are few towns in the states that don?t have the oldest, tallest, smallest, biggest or first something or other in the world.

When this tendency to extremity is coupled with the fact that the Irish view of Americans is informed by the actions of their politicians, generally negative, media hype of the sensational kind, or the antics of the American tourist (?Rome, Jack, Rome was where you bought socks?), it comes as no surprise that the American (or ?Yank?) is the easy butt of our jokes.

Despite this, America is the most powerful nation on earth, if not the wealthiest. It has a generous nature although, at times, this is tempered by political expediency. Without America, there would have been no Good Friday Agreement or Celtic Tiger. When their undoubted contribution to our country?s political and industrial progress is considered along with their daily input into our commercial life through the plane loads of tourists that visit us each year, it is clear that, without the Americans, we would have great difficulty in maintaining the quality of life we now enjoy.

On a recent trip to Milwaukee, it occurred to me that our knowledge of the American people and their ethos is sadly minimal. While there on a Saturday evening that threatened to be long and lonely I became short of reading material and went looking for books. Not far from the hotel I found an excellent second hand bookshop, ?Downtown Books? ; which was reminiscent in style and stock of Charlie Byrnes. Perusing its? shelves, I came across an old battered paperback of John Steinbeck?s ?Travels with Charley ? which I purchased for the princely sum of one dollar seventy five cents, plus tax.

To me, John Steinbeck has always been one of the great American writer? in fact, one of the greatest ever novelist in any language. This opinion is based largely on one book, the magnificent ?Grapes of Wrath?. No other novel has achieved the grandeur of this masterpiece. In it, we experience the coming of age of the American nation, the David and Goliath struggle between the haves and the have nots and the emergence of the sense of decency that I believe is, essentially, the ethos of the American people. John Steinbeck is one man I would love to have met.

Clutching my prize eagerly to my chest, I made my way to that wonderful Italian restaurant, Louise?s, where I sat at the bar, ordered a beer and began to read. Three hours later after a delicious meal and equally good wine, served with grace and laughter, I was halfway through the book. Walking back to my hotel I had an overwhelming feeling that here in the refreshing city of Milwaukee, through the pages of a battered old paperback, I had the privilege of coming close to understanding the ingredients of the American Dream.

Written some twenty three years after ?The Grapes of Wrath?, ? Travels with Charley? is a journey Steinbeck undertook to tour with his dog Charley the very country that had been his subject matter for the past forty years. With characteristic bluntness, he makes no excuses for this, and just sees it as something he had to do.

In the early pages he tells us how he purchased a specially fitted out truck, added one or two features to it himself and then called it ?Rocinante? after Don Quixote?s horse. In the Autumn of 1959 or 1960 before ?America lost her innocence? our gallant trio set off from New York and commence their journey.

As we travel with them up into Maine across to Chicago and then north to Wisconsin, west to the pacific and then south to Steinbeck?s home place in Salinas, California, we become aware that this is an odyssey and that the Holy Grail we are seeking is the American soul. As we pushed east through Texas and into the deep south of Louisiana we suddenly realise that it is Steinbeck?s own soul that is revealing itself to us and that, init, we have the essence of America. It is a journey well worth the travelling.