In the classic American road novel, the objective is to leave trouble behind and find the freedom to make your own new troubles. In Michael Parker's All I Have in This World, Marcus Banks abandons his foreclosed farm in North Carolina and packs his truck to head for Mexico. No wide-eyed kid, Marcus is in his 40s, single and estranged from his only sister.
After his truck is stolen in Pinto Canyon, Tex., he finds the perfect replacement: a sky-blue 1984 Buick Electra, "a hulk of steel and chrome and vinyl devoid of the messiness of unhinged humans." Eyeing the same car is Maria, who grew up in Pinto Canyon, got pregnant, aborted the baby and dropped the man, then ran off to be a chef in Oregon. She's back in town to help her mother run her motel. Impulsive but wary, she agrees to buy the car 50-50 with Marcus.
Parker (The Watery Way of the World) knows how to set a stage--a disconnected young woman and a disappointed older man, a classic American car, plenty of open highway--but the wonderful twist in Parker's road novel is that Marcus and Maria don't go anywhere. The shared Electra and the charts of who drives which days, Maria's attempts to make amends with her taciturn mother and estranged brother, Marcus's efforts to repay his sister for the lost family land, the rough beauty of West Texas and its small towns--all this Parker rolls together to build a generous story of human redemption. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.