"American Express" is based on the travel story "Breakfast in winter at five in the morning", which was the result of the author's journey from New York to California by rail. The pages of the book describe meetings with colorful passengers of an American train, intertwined with lyrical episodes from the life of the author, his friends and relatives, travel sketches, historical notes about the United States and interesting, laconic stories about individual Americans and Russian emigrants in the USA, very accurately and vividly characterizing the difference in the worldview of both.