He only wrote about cities in these guides, as people taking business trips flew into cities and out again, and their main concern was how to pretend they had never left home. What hotels in Madrid had American-style beds? What restaurants in Tokyo offered American food? Did Amsterdam, Rome, Mexico City have a McDonalds?
Although Macon hated the travel, he loved the writing -the delight of organizing a disorganized country, putting down in short neat paragraphs just the essential information. He spent pleasurable hours over the right choice of words, the correct use of a comma. l am happy to say, he would type, frowning in concentration, that it's possible now to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken in Stockholm.
‘But why didn't you tell us?’ his sister said on the phone. ‘Sarah's been gone three weeks, and l only hear about it today!’
‘The last thing l need,’ Macon said, ‘is my family around me saying, "Oh, poor Macon, how could Sarah do this to you--"
‘Why would I say that?" Rose asked. "Everybody knows the Leary men are difficult to live with.’
‘Oh,’ Macon said.