First published 1979
Ray Midge comes home to find his wife Norma gone. She has taken his car, emptied his bank account, and maxed out his credit cards. Worse, she has run off with her ex-husband Guy Dupree. Ray refuses to accept this betrayal. He borrows money and heads south to track them down. The chase leads Ray from Arkansas through Texas and into Mexico. Along the way, he encounters Dr. Reo Symes, a peculiar American expatriate who owns a decrepit bus called the Dog of the South. Symes becomes Ray's unlikely traveling companion as they navigate dusty roads and seedy hotels in pursuit of the fugitive couple. What begins as a mission to reclaim stolen property transforms into something else entirely. The deeper Ray travels into unfamiliar territory, the more he questions what he is really searching for. The hunt for Norma and Guy becomes secondary to Ray's own journey of self-discovery in a landscape that strips away his assumptions about marriage, loyalty, and his place in the world.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, adventure, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, journey
Setting: Arkansas, East, Gulf States, Latin America, Mexico, North America, South, Southeast, Southwest, Texas, United States, West
Period: 1970s (Decade) AD, 20th century AD
310 pages · W.F. Howes