Synopses & Reviews
When Matthew, a fortysomething media executive, finds his Manhattan job, health, and Connecticut marriage crumbling, he goes native: Drinks in his car. Gives drug dealing a shot. Looks for direction in easy-listening rock lyrics, takes a free crafting class at the community center, and gets in a fistfight with a meditation instructor. He also tries jogging.
Soon he's on a stumbling, sideways vision quest that takes him from strip malls to national parks to a Bali medical clinic, from an unlikely romance with a Hollywood agent specializing in hot young vampire roles to extreme RVing with a disgraced Wall Street trader.
In this heroic, hilarious debut novel, Dan Kennedy, a mainstay of the storytelling phenomenon The Moth, gives us an Everyman who takes us to the dark valleys and neon-lit edges of contemporary American life.
Synopsis
A razor-sharp look at contemporary life by a great American storyteller — a brilliant, hilarious novel that reads like an
Eat Pray Love for men. For fans of
Up in the Air and the novels of Sam Lipsyte,
Rock On author Dan Kennedy's debut novel is a scabrous but exhilarating take on modern life in America.
When Matthew, a forty-something media executive, finds his job, health, and wife slipping through his fingers, he lashes out at life as he knows it and searches for answers. The result is a stumbling, agonizing, hilarious vision quest that takes him from a strip-mall parking lot to a Bali medical clinic, an adventure that involves drug-running, mug-making, and extreme RVing. Brimming with wisdom and humor, American Spirit nails the way we live now.
About the Author
Dan Kennedy is the author of the national best seller Rock On: An Office Power Ballad and the widely acclaimed Loser Goes First, as well as a regular contributor to McSweeneys, and host of The Moth storytelling podcast and Moth StorySLAM in New York.