“Davy Rothbart has the humor and purity of heart you want and need in an observer of contemporary American life. Without guile and with a belief in small towns, underdogs, love at first sight, the pull of the road, and the soulfulness of strangers, Rothbart is a kind of new-styled Bill Moyers--genuine, wide-eyed, and hopeful.” —Dave Eggers

“I believe in Davy. He's a force to be reckoned with.” —Ira Glass

“THIS BOOK IS F---ING GREAT! Nobody writes quite like Davy Rothbart, because nobody lives quite like Davy Rothbart--a true and funny ragged-hearted seeker of ecstasy, mystery, and human connection. My Heart Is an Idiot contains some of the most perfect and heartbreaking writing that I have ever read.” —Elizabeth Gilbert


“In Davy Rothbart's essays on heartache, mad love, the low life, and the high life, everybody is fascinating; everybody has something to say. The sentences speed you along down one narrative highway after another, and your tour guide is smart and funny and a real democrat: he has a sweet-tempered openness to experience that wins you over. This book breathes new life back into the personal essay, and these essays are a trip. Take that trip.” —Charles Baxter

“Tender, cool, funny, and utterly engaging, Davy Rothbart writes with a kind of warmth and cockeyed energy that make you love him. This book is marvelous.” —Susan Orlean

"A treasury of trash, a wonderfully weird collection...a fascinating glimpse into the wackier depths of America's collective subconscious."

-- The Washington Post


"I love Found!"

-- Drew Barrymore

"A fascinating and compelling collection that will break your heart."

-- David Sedaris, author of Me Talk Pretty One Day

"Writers resent Found. How would you feel if you spent months and years slaving over stories when these talented rubberneckers can't seem to walk their dogs without tripping over one teensy epic after another? No fair!"

-- Sarah Vowell, author of Take the Cannoli and The Partly Cloudy Patriot

In The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas, Davy Rothbart's stories grow out of road trips and small towns and are populated by questionable heroes and gold-hearted thugs.

Full of loneliness and hope, heartbreak and humor, Rothbart's tales blaze their way from midwestern farm fields to state prisons and border-town brothels.
Much like the lost, tossed, and forgotten items Rothbart collected in his acclaimed book, Found, the stories in The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas capture the oddity, poetry, and dignity of everyday life.

“With two national best sellers (Found and Found II), a magazine of the same name and accompanying web site, and a road show across America already in place, Rothbart adds this collection of 67 pieces submitted by writers, musicians, and friends. Rothbart invited contributors—including such well-known figures as comedian Andy Samberg, musician Andrew Bird, and writers Tom Robbins, Susan Orlean, Dave Eggers, and Paulo Coelho—to share their finds or to include a short piece of fiction based on a find. Bich Minh Nguyen (Stealing Buddha's Dinner) found a photograph of her mother, whom she'd never met; Samberg found a ten-dollar bill with an obscenity written on it; Orlean found the idea for a book about orchids. Various selections are fascinating, disturbing, funny, poetic, graphic, personal, illuminating, and combinations of these. Clearly, Rothbart's idea has found a following, and his book is a keeper.”

School Library Journal