Part travelogue and part cultural and literary exploration of the meaning of home and freedom in the American psyche, Trailer Park Nation: The Glamorous Rise and Tragic Fall of the Dream of a Mobile America tells the story of this country's fascinating and sordid love affair with trailers and trailer parks.

Mixing colorful encounters with the offbeat, bizarre, and larger-than-life characters who even today cling to the ideal of a nation on wheels with an appreciation of the trailer's often contradictory role in modern American history, Trailer Park Nation takes us on a journey from the glittery dawn of the trailer in the early twentieth century—including a visit to a trailer park built by Bing Crosby as a hideout for celebrities to engage in their wildest fantasies—to Slab City, America's only anarchist trailer park. Along the way, Mark Van de Walle shows us how trailers have been part of some of the strangest episodes of our history and culture—including the Cold War, UFO sightings, and conspiracy theories—and that, despite their contemporary association with trashiness, the trailer was once considered an important technological and social creation that would free Americans from the constraints of place.

Mark Van de Walle's writing on subjects from art and design to apocalyptic millenarianism has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Paris Review, Slate, Travel and Leisure, and others. He is currently a contributing editor at Departures magazine.