Synopses & Reviews
There's a Road to Everywhere Except Where You Came From is the memoir of a young Midwestern man struggling to carve out a life as a writer, and to find meaning, or at least a job, in his new and alien landscape of New York City. In a voice at once coolly detached and utterly confident, we follow Bryan Charles's journey navigating love, work, and family, from the streets of Manhattan to the upper floors of corporate America. This is a gripping meditation on the self, ricocheting between the multitudes and solitude, and between the industrial-turned-residential spaces of Brooklyn and the towers of the World Trade Center, where his life takes an unexpected turn. Charles's story is a spare, honest, and often hilarious narrative of expectation and loss, and of the ordinary becoming the extraordinary.
Review
"With a spare style, subtle humor, and huge dollops of emotional angst, Charles puts a modern spin on the urban memoir." Booklist
Review
"This is the book I can't forget...Full of insightful, transcendent regular-guy moments and bad decisions, it didn't make me like the author, but it knocked me on my ass." (Starred Review) Library Journal
About the Author
Bryan Charles was born in Michigan and lives in Brooklyn. His writing has appeared in Open City and the anthology Before & After: Stories from New York. His books include Grab on to Me Tightly As If I Knew the Way and Pavement's Wowee Zowee