Down the Highway

Down the Highway is a picaresque road novel with many narrators. It is set in Europe, 1962, with the bookends of travelers-James R. Dean and Terrance O' Hara-meeting in current time as older men reevaluating their lives and past tragedies. As young men, they find their American voices while traveling with little money through Europe during a time of pending major change. While a folksinger named Dylan is about to change American music forever, they meet John Lennon just before the Beatles hire a new drummer named Ringo. They teach the French youth of Toulouse how to curse in English. In Rome, a beautiful Italian woman named Franca teaches James the art of sexual love. They see the Berlin wall going up and witness its first casualty, the slain youth who became known simply as Peter. In Munich's Hofbr uhaus, they confront neo Nazis who have attacked a fellow traveler, Herb Freedman. And what did that novice nun mean by having her "Walt Whitman moment"?On the road, they make other quick friends they will never see again. They also meet an American woman named Pat who forges a love triangle profoundly changing both men. When the two friends meet decades later, will they also contact the elusive woman who affected their lives? Buy it, today, and find out.