William Least Heat Moon is readily dismissive, on several insistent occasions in his American travelogue, Blue Highways, of what is called an "apple Indian"—that is a redskin with white innards, an Uncle Tom-tom. What should be made of Moon himself? The name is Indian. But the few, well-hidden, clues in a text otherwise remarkable for its lack of candour, point to a pre-publication Moon who has the looks, demeanour and sensibility of a white American….

It is true that Trogdon/Moon is a melting-pot American with forebears both Sioux and Lancastrian; but, whatever the ancestry, he himself is not an Indian—apple or otherwise—any more than he is a pilgrim father.

First impressions that Blue Highways is a bogus concoction, its Indian-ness at best a romantic affectation, at worst a marketing deceit, are consolidated by Moon's initial narrative manner (solemn and pontificating) and his fondness for...