THE LONGEST LINE ON THE MAP

There's something tantalizing in narrator Jacques Roy's voice as he delivers a history of the Pan-American Highway, which was intended to link North and South America. To start, the author takes listeners back to the 1800s, when the railroad was just a dream. From there, events unfold in a story of disappointments and shortfalls. Latin-American revolutions and famous people like Andrew Carnegie and Jay Gould are part of the story, but so are details on conferences and congressional debates. Listening sometimes feels as frustrating as the diplomacy involved. In fact, one gets about halfway through the audiobook before the highway even comes up again. The Darién Gap, between Panama and Colombia, remains to this day, so the highway may never be complete. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2019]