Book Description

This is an odyssey of a man moving in two directions. It starts with the reality of him on the downtown streets of Los Angels-nearly broken, stricken, and drinking to keep himself unconscious of what brought him there. One night a fellow derelict dies close by and this gives him the incentive to move on...but to where? Grief and booze having rendered him without words, he embarks on a silent journey up the coast of California. As he travels, he dreads any remembrances of his life as it used to be in England, with the woman he loved obsessively and...lost...but how? So, as he is "going on" whether meandering, staggering or marching, through encounters with patronizing humiliation, violence, and some unexpected friendship, his stubborn hurt mind flashes back to the past reality ("never go backwards!") But slowly, inevitably, the going on and going back come together in an astonishing conclusion. In the wild wonderful space of Big Sur, amid the beauty of sea and rocks, he has to confront the truth of this tender, yearning love story.