The writing life has taken journalist Steve Boggan many exotic places: war zones, up the Amazon in search of hallucinogen- fueled natives (along they way he encountered “rare pink dolphins”), and deep into the bowels of British society during staffer stints at the Independent, the Times, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Evening Standard. Now a freelancer, Mr. Boggan’s first book took him into the gunsights of possibly fatal boredom: He flew from London to Lebanon, Kansas (the center of the United States, by some estimates) to follow a ten dollar bill as it passed from person to person over the course of 30 days. The wandering sawbuck led him to some decidedly non-exotic places, including Hays, Kansas, Harrisonville, Missouri, an apple orchard, a deer hunting camp, and a few motels where bedbugs dare not tread. “More than once I had questioned my decision to take on this task,” he writes early on. “It was neither smart nor funny. It was just crazy.” Which raises a reasonable question: Why read such a book? For the people, mostly. Ordinary Americans, so-called, bring Mr. Boggan’s book to life (aided, to be sure, by a sharp eye and generous spirit). There’s more to the nation’s interior life than you see from the Interstates, or 39.000 feet. Mr. Boggan did a similar story for the Guardian, in that case following a ten-pound note around London. The ground rules were simple enough: If a person accepted the bill (either as payment or as change) they were told Mr. Boggan came with it and would stay nearby until the bill changed hands. As he told Rick Chapin, a lodge owner who was the first to get the bill, “Just treat it like any other ten dollar bill and spend it whenever you’re ready.” He fully understands how strange a proposition this would seem to future recipients. “There is no word other than ‘creepy’ to describe the act of asking a lone woman, traveling hundreds of miles with her four-year-old son, if you can follow her,” he writes. Yet this particular woman, whom he met in Kansas, responded, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” Before his journey ended, Mr. Boggan shared houses, drinks, tree stands and life stories with a proudly godless truck driver, a pair of evangelical missionaries, an Amish rug maker, a platoon of musicians, a Chicago banker, a bow-hunting waitress, a woman whose son makes his living as a cage-fighter, and a hotel worker named Stacey who shared her own literary aspiration: to publish her book arguing that lesbians co-habitate far quicker than heterosexuals. That title is “Bring Your Own U-Haul” and awaits a nimble agent. Suspicious readers may be wondering by now if “Follow the Money” is yet another exercise in cross-Atlantic sneering, in which a sophisticated European – perhaps one of those preening metrosexuals! – makes fun of American rubes like Ernie, a Kansas farmer who asks if the Brits are still having martial trouble with the Germans, and, when Mr. Broggan offers to guide him around London should he ever visit, asks “Will you take me to see the Eiffel Tower?” While Ernie would no doubt send eyes rolling ‘round Islington (and Topeka as well) Mr. Boggan finds Ernie to be a decent man who would fly to England’s assistance should the Germans revert to their old ways. Indeed, he is so enthusiastic about many of the people he meets and the places he visits he could easily get work at local chambers of commerce should the freelance life go sour. In one St. Louis neighborhood, for instance, he marvels at the number of local theatrical productions, admires young girls working on their ballet steps, and enjoys the thunder of a brass band. He chides English friends who insist the “American Midwest was a cultural wasteland. It wasn’t even a weekend. This was an average Thursday night.” This isn’t to suggest Mr. Boggan is without opinions. He’s put off by anti-abortion billboards, right-wing radio (he is outraged by the Mancow show, for some reason not realizing you should never take seriously anyone called Mancow), is ill at ease around guns and seems, at first at least, to be a bit of a Jehovahphobe, complaining about radio preachers and feeling a “tightening” in his stomach when people start talking about God. But he gives his subjects a respectful listen, especially the Amish, whose productivity humbles him. He does find signs of small town decay, yet on the bright side notes corresponding investment opportunities. Mr. Boggan tells of a California doctor who bought a Kansas house on eBay for a few thousand dollars, though when he came to town he “took one look at what he’d bought and drove off without getting out of his car.” Mr Boggan includes brief local histories and interesting tidbits, some about money itself: during his 30 day trip, the Treasury Department printed around 82 million ten-dollar bills; all told 25-30 million bills of all denominations are printed each day, worth in total about $1 billion, though the cost of each bill is just under a dime (which some people think is close to their true value). Google Earth, he discovered, offers a variety of midpoints for the U.S. If you use a Mac, you get Chanute, Kansas, while the PC version directs you to the Meadowbrook Apartments in St. Lawrence, Kansas. He offers a reasonable explanation: “Could this have anything to do with the fact that Brian McClendon, vice-president of engineering at Google, lived in the Meadowbrook Apartments as a boy? Or that Dan Webb, senior software engineer at Google, grew up in Chanute, Kansas? Surely not.” The last person to have the bill was a retired Ford auto plant worker named Glenn Waddell, who had won the money in a sports bet. All told, the journey took Mr. Boggan about 3,000 fairly placid miles. Pleasant reading every page though an interesting sequel might start him out someplace slightly more adventurous -- South Central Los Angeles or New Orleans perhaps – where a wandering sawbuck would likely take him places that will tighten more than his stomach.
