Reading the Signs and other itinerant essays

In his progress from “the place we called home” to “remote and little visited,” Stephen Benz meets a lot of out-of-the-ordinary people: Dale the tobacco-spitting harvest field-crew hand; Mr. Johnson, the gruff Bible-reading grounds crew boss; Carolyn Terry, the curator of the world’s only apron museum; an unnamed Elko, Nevada waitress who bets all her tip money; his own suddenly-appearing but finally-disappearing Uncle Joe; Daniel the Romanian partisan. He also sees a lot of out-of-the-way places: the Palouse; Iuka, Mississippi; Quanah, Texas; the Parting-of-the-Ways; Transnistria; Camaguey. Benz journeys from the bones to the stars, and along the way he makes himself into Everyperson: Reading the Signs offers up the stories of the Listener, the memories of the Watcher.
—H. L. Hix, Demonstrategy


Stephen Benz’s essays are simultaneously personal and universal in the way they tap into human experience. From family stories to travels of great distance, Benz takes readers on a compelling journey. Rich in sense of place, these essays deftly challenge physical and spiritual divides while exploring various crossroads near and far.
—Diane Thiel


Benz’s essays hold the reader all the way, section after section. This is a book for anyone who has a traveling heart.
—William Heyen, Nature: Selected & New Poems 1970-2020

Benz’s fascinating new book teaches us to read the land through his experience, whether driving a truck, cruising battle sites or Indian and Latin American culture. By the end, he helps us understand what it means to find one’s place in history.
—David King Dunaway, The Ballad of Pete Seeger