In this picaresque novel, two adrift people hit the road together.

Beckman is a would-be writer, and that’s putting it charitably. Malany is a poet with one slim self-published volume. But they are committed to their art, by golly, and Beckman decides that they should hit the road for inspiration and at least act like accomplished and outrageous literary types. This leads to a series of comic adventures and to some interesting folks along the way, like a pool shark named Hoss and the Moskowskis—he’s a closeted gay professor, and she’s a sexual adventurer with a taste for literary fantasy. Beckman and Malany have a vague idea of winding up in California, the land of golden dreams. They may or may not make the Golden State, but they do finally compromise with real life, having learned some hard lessons. Meier’s book is a study in deceit—self-deceit and otherwise. Beckman is the artistic equivalent of “all hat and no cattle” and believes in psychokinesis to boot. It’s telling that we never get to read any of Malany’s poems, and for all her artistic bravado, she has a patron who adores her and shadows her peregrinations, dropping off envelopes of money. Hoss seems to be militantly hetero, but get him drunk enough, and he will let professor Moskowski have his way with him and shrug it off. Honey Moskowski loves to pretend to be characters such as Zelda Fitzgerald (with Beckman an ersatz Scott). A question arises as to whether we can take these people seriously or if Meier means us to. This is, as the title suggests, a very sad novel. Perhaps Honey is right when she says that she and Beckman “do crazy things to keep from going insane.” By the middle of the book, with the arrival of the Moskowskis, the pace does pick up, and Meier can be quite entertaining. A thorough proofing is recommended.

Not a book to everyone’s taste, but some may follow these off-kilter adventures eagerly.