picaresque
"Original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive, a picaresque journey across America where the travelers are even stranger than the roadside attractions."
adjective
relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero.
milieu
"He captures our media-saturated milieu, but also the underpinnings of what came before, the cultural heritage that forged our melting-pot culture."
noun
a person's social environment
diffidently
"Would they, I inquired rather diffidently, be willing to use my original, untrimmed text?"