The Bad American

At the heart of Paul Reidinger's new novel The Bad American, we find Roy North, an American prone to daydreaming, and his mother, a widowed woman with little patience for daydreamers or much else. When a health crisis engulfs her, their little family of two (plus an assortment of hangers-on) embarks on a voyage across land- and seascapes roiled by an America in its own health crisis. Can either of the stricken parties recover?

You might like this book if: you're interested in American history and politics, you have a sense of humor, you have some curiosity about the religious instinct, you believe in bisexuality and/or you can bear some probing of troubled family relationships.