The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 28 January 1998
by Jim Dodge
On a rainy night in Northern California, a crazed and mysterious tow-truck driver tells his captive client a racing story of drug-addled dreams. George Gastin begins his life of truck driving early. By the age of 20, he is burned out and working a middling job in San Francisco as the Beatnik era draws to a close. On the side, George wrecks expensive cars for insurance payoffs. One night, fed up with life in general, looking for dreams, and dreaming of a lost love, he takes a golden opportunity to begin a pilgrimage to the grave of the Big Bopper in a shiny new Cadillac. What ensues is an amphetimine crazed journey across America in the mid-60s. George picks up a number of crazies and lonely hearts, and narrowly, if magically, escapes danger along the way. The book is like an ancient tale of the seeker in search of meaning in life. There are many many witty lines, asides and characterizations. But the whole seems to lack a unique voice. The characters all speak with the same offhand wit and sarcasm, and the storyteller is somewhat wooden. Jim Dodge has his similarities to Hunter Thompson and Tom Robbins, but the book never becomes gripping, despite a hilarious re-telling of the Book of Job. Like the drugs George takes, the story races to a surreal close.
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