Is it possible, by travelling to a new world, to become a new person? Jonathan Raban crossed the Atlantic by ship and, like the immigrants before him, made for America in search of a new language, a new name, a new identity. Plus: Rian Malan, Roger Garfitt, Josef Skvorecky, Paul Theroux, Patricia Highsmith, Tim O’Brien, and Patrick McGrath’s ‘A Boy’s Broadmoor’.