Dallas Heritage Village Book Club

The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer’s Search for Meaning in the Great Depression by Ben Montgomery

Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way.