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GREG MELVILLE gets it done in
Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future
Harvard Book Store is bracing itself for a sure-to-be-well-attended visit from journalist GREG MELVILLE, who'll talk about the cross-country experiment he and a friend conduct in Greasy Rider, a tale of sustainable energy measures within our reach. "If two goobers like us can actually get in a car and drive across the country without fossil fuels or putting a lot of carbon into the air," Melville told Audubon magazine, "the answers for sustainability are easier than people think." Greasy Rider was named Audubon magazine's Editor's Choice: "Journalist Greg Melville and his college buddy Iggy are just a couple of regular (if quirky) guys on a cross-country road trip. Their goal: to drive Melville’s 1985 Mercedes, reconfigured to run on used fryer oil, from Vermont to California without stopping at the gas pump. It’s a mechanical challenge—breakdowns, while frequent, always manage to be just this side of catastrophic—and also a hilariously social one. "Reluctantly, the pair begs (or, failing that, steals) waste oil from a string of fast-food restaurants, struggling to explain to observers and burrito-joint managers that their grease-stained clothes and French fry-scented vehicle are the wave of the future. Melville, who has written for Outside and Men’s Journal, has a breezy, unpretentious style as well as the ability to work in the occasional edifying digression—a brief history of wind power, for instance, or a discussion with a professor about cellulosic ethanol—without disrupting the book’s brisk, novelistic pace. "At trip’s end, Melville explains to his pal that they have proven something important: “If two goobers like us can actually get in a car and drive across the country without fossil fuels or putting a lot of carbon into the air, the answers for sustainability are easier than people think.” —Alexa Schirtzinger, Audubon magazine
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