Book Review: ‘The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road’
What the moving business says about the reality of life on the road
It’s always fascinating to glimpse into parallel lives around us — people who are living in the same place at the same time, but who have vastly different day-to-day experiences. One example: the lives of people who drive trucks for a living.
In The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road, author Finn Murphy takes readers with him across America as he packs up people’s household belongings, drives them across the country, and unpacks them in their new home. Along the way, we get a behind-the-scenes look at the moving industry and its cast of characters.
The stories Murphy shares stick with you, providing a newfound appreciation for the lives of the anonymous movers transporting things all around us all the time. His advice for the best way to move? Get rid of everything and start fresh in your new home.
This book resonated with me for several reasons. First of all, I am guilty of romanticizing lonely professions. They seem noble and only doable for the toughest-minded humans. I’m curious about who these people actually are. I also just finished a two-month drive across America. The journey — with its truck stops, open roads, and big rigs — is fresh in my mind and imagination.
More immediately, I read this book as background for my new job. I’m in my second month with Vector, a transportation technology company based in San Francisco. Since I work in sales, it’s my job to call hundreds of trucking companies every week to see if they could benefit from our trucking software. The people I chat with have great accents, memorable mannerisms, and folksy speech patterns. They’re always busy. This book helped me understand their environment better, and to put a face to the voices I hear on the phone every day.
Murphy, A.K.A. “U-Turn,” doesn’t seem like the stereotypical truck driver and that is exactly the point. The manual labor and isolation of his occupation attracts a broad spectrum of men, as he tells it. (And more than 90 percent of truck drivers are indeed men). In trucking, frustration is the norm. Anger is justified in this industry. Traffic sucks, helpers are lazy, shippers are paranoid, and even the van line exploits you.
Murphy was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended college until his senior year, when, much to the disapproval of his parents, he dropped out. He saw the potential for making good money through independent means, and decided to grow up right then and there and start driving.
This relatable evolution makes Murphy the perfect interlocutor for sharing with the layman reader an array of interesting, easy-to-read tidbits about the industry. I recommend this book to anyone curious about what life is like in one of those big trucks on the road, and who those humans are behind the wheel. (Yes, they listen to Terry Gross, may micturate in Gatorade bottles, and sleep in their tractor trailers if they can).
Finally, it’s not surprising that someone who has spent most of his life on the road has heaps of philosophical insight. Here are some of the gems Murphy shares that stuck with me:
- “Movers are there at the beginning point of accumulation and all the points to the bitter end, so we tend to develop a Buddhist view of attachment. Sentimental value of stuff is a graven image and a mug’s game. What my customers need to know is that it’s not the stuff but the connection with people and family and friends that matters. Practically everyone I move gets this wrong.”
- “This is a point I’d like to emphasize,” Murphy writes. “Moving today is cheaper, safer and performed better than at any time in history.” Historically, when humans relocated they often risked death. Today, “nobody’s getting ambushed and cut to pieces on a frozen mountain pass. Nobody’s being forced to eat their mother in law due to a lack of forage. I respect people’s stuff, but shit happens. You know why? Because you’re moving it. People go crazy when something happens to their stuff. The reaction, it appears to me, is generally overblown and not commensurate with the perceived offense.”
- “What happens in the first five minutes usually establishes the tone on any move. In fact, I only really know a move is going well if the shipper disappears.”
Thanks, U-Turn, for the vicarious adventure!
