Charles Portis · 1979 · road

Charles Portis's deadpan 1979 comic novel. Ray Midge of Little Rock, Arkansas, comes home to find that his wife Norma has run off to Mexico with her ex-husband Guy Dupree, taking Ray's Ford Torino, his credit cards and his shotgun. Following the trail of gas-station receipts, Ray drives south in a borrowed Buick through Texas and deep into Mexico, falling in with the grandiloquent quack Dr Reo Symes, all the way to British Honduras. The route traces his absurd, dogged pursuit.

1. 1
   Little Rock

   In Little Rock, Ray Midge studies the credit-card receipts his runaway wife has left in her wake and works out that she and Dupree are heading for Mexico in his beloved Torino.

2. 2
   Laredo

   He drives south across Texas to the border at Laredo and crosses into Mexico, the receipts leading him ever onward.

3. 3
   Veracruz

   Through the heat and breakdowns of eastern Mexico he presses on, picking up the broke and talkative Dr Reo Symes, owner of a derelict bus called the Dog of the South.

4. 4
   Belize City

   The trail runs out at last in British Honduras, in the mud and rain of Belize, where Ray finally catches up with Norma, Dupree and the wreck of his car.