Feeding his insights through Edward Hopper’s famous painting of four people in a late night city diner, Gordon Theisen creates an interesting thesis on what makes America go, from coffee, to antidepressants, to happy endings in movies. Most of all, he explores tangents that flow from these elements, and in the process he paints a canvas stranger than most Surrealist masterpieces.

What drives us to drink coffee after coffee, staying up late and feeling energized but directionless? What draws us to the late night diner and coffee shop likes moths to the flame? Reflected in the plate glass window that wraps around the diner in Hopper’s painting is all of the optimism and pain that keeps us moving. Theisen sees that “we take out loans for new houses we can’t quite afford with large garages for the new SUVs we can’t quite afford because the payments won’t seem so bad after the promotion we presume is coming our way very soon.” We are hellbent on optimism, but reality is so very stark.

In the world of the Nighthawks diner, we find our antiheroes. “They inhabit a different America, a flip side of the one we are used to, a cooler, jazzier, deeply shadowed America hidden behind the giant billboards and manicured lawns and wide toothy smiles and Norman Rockwell townscapes.” This is the America that we (mostly) pretend to not belong to, the America that we try to avoid, but continue to flirt with. This is the America we sidestep everyday, but recreate at home with our personal coffee makers. It’s never quite the same, is it?

This book is an interesting, gritty read that explores connections between a myriad of cultural signposts, including but not limited to movies, books, restaurants, and fine art. Take a sip. It’ll keep you up all night. ( )