Edward Abbey · 1988 · road

Edward Abbey's 1988 novel, subtitled An Honest Novel. Henry Lightcap, abandoned by his wife and given a death sentence by his own failing body, shoots his refrigerator, loads his old dog into a battered pickup and drives east, from the Arizona desert back toward the West Virginia hills where he was born. The cross-country drive is braided with the wreckage and wonder of a whole life remembered. The route runs from the Southwest to Appalachia.

1. 1
   Tucson

   In Tucson, Henry Lightcap, deserted and dying, abandons the desert life he built and points his old truck east toward the home he left long ago.

2. 2
   Albuquerque

   Across New Mexico and the high desert, the miles unspooling alongside memories of marriages, wild rivers and the friends and country he has loved and lost.

3. 3
   Wichita

   Out onto the Great Plains, the enormous American emptiness, Henry and his dog driving on through grief and stubborn humour.

4. 4
   St. Louis

   Across the Mississippi at St. Louis, deeper into the green and humid East, the journey homeward now unmistakably a journey toward death.

5. 5
   Stump Crick

   Into the West Virginia hills and the family farm at Stump Crick, where the boy he was first set out, and where the man he became means to end.