by Tom Robbins
First published 1993
Sissy Henshaw stands on the roadside with her remarkably large thumbs extended, ready to catch the next ride across America. The year is somewhere in the paranoid 1970s, and the country feels fractured and uncertain. Sissy moves from highway to highway, city to city, collecting experiences like souvenirs. She meets an array of unconventional characters who populate the margins of American society. Each encounter teaches her something new about the world and herself. Her journey becomes more than simple transportation from one place to another. The people she loves and the friends she makes along the way shape her understanding of freedom and connection. Sissy must navigate between her desire for independence and her need for human bonds. Her story unfolds against a backdrop of cultural upheaval and social confusion, where traditional values clash with emerging counterculture movements.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: America
Period: 1970s
416 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Random House