One Spring day in Valencia, Spain in about 1992, I was out walking when I should have been taking a siesta. It was already hot in May.

It was hot enough that I thought my eyes deceived me when I saw a motor-scooter with a license plate that said “Arizona Route 66”.

“Hmm. How did that get here?” I asked myself. “Why do they think that’s significant?”

And after I had thought about it a bit, I realized that Route 66 was no less than a modern American myth: A phenomenon loaded with power and significance far beyond its literal meaning. It wasn’t just a road: It was something more like magic.

And so the process started.

I started to think of how the ancient European myths I had just spent four months learning and appreciating might collide with ancient American myths somewhere along the modern American mythic pathway we called “Route 66”, and it would help if it could happen during the myth-laden American time of the 1950’s.

And so after stewing on it for twenty years or so (and after several false starts) I made a book out of it.

I hope you will enjoy Eye of the Diamond T.

— Bill LaBrie