Random Walk: A Novel for a New Age

Say someone comes up to me at a signing and says something like this: "I've been reading your books for years and I've always enjoyed them but there was this one novel of yours and I swear I couldn't make head or tail out of it, and. . ." And I know right away he's talking about Random Walk.

Or what he says is more along the lines of, "I've been reading your books for years and I always enjoy them, but there's one book of yours that I read seventeen times and it changed my life and. . ." And once again the book in question always turns out to be Random Walk.

I grant you it's an odd one. Guy in Roseburg, Oregon, quits his bartending job for no apparent reason and starts walking east across the Cascades. Other peope are drawn to him and the group generates its own mysterious energy, and Things Happen

Meanwhile, a real estate developer in Kansas starts driving all over the midwest, killing women for pleasure. Uh, that’d be his pleasure, not theirs.

The book got lousy reviews back in 1988, and the publisher didn't make much of an effort, and it pretty much vanished without a trace. (The cover, as you can see, looks sort of sci-fi-ish. The cover of the paperback looked like a novel of the western migration. No wonder nobody bought it.)

I brought it back via iUniverse some years ago, and it goes on finding its audience. For a couple of bucks, you and your Kindle can be a part thereof.