I love, love, love Two Lane Blacktop, so when I saw R.W. had put out a new novel I pounced on it and found a book that at first glance seems redolent of Blood Meridian and other C. McCarthy books, but turned quickly into it's own hairy creation with a far more spiritual and humanistic aim and approach despite all the resonant violence and inhumanity it depicts. I wholly recommend it.

Wurlitzer presents the frontier as a land of individualistic competition, and yet simultaneously as a place where life is uncontrollable, untamable, and surrendered to fate. The characters are in a constant struggle for control over their own lives; and it always seems just out of reach.

[..]

This is the story of Zebulon Shook, a wild mountain man from Colorado. It's a kind of picresque story - he gets dragged from one random adventure to the next. It's also kind of magical realist, as it's full of Indian spirit people who prophecy and curse. Much of the story is about the gold rush in California - portrayed as an incident of global insanity, with colorful characters from every corner of the earth. It's stimulated me to go out and get some non-fiction books on the gold rush - I want to know more. Good read once it got going. I don't normally go for flights of fantasy, but the spirit world scenes were quite moving.

Thank you, Rudolph. I couldn't find any biographical informatin on you in the book, but I will definitely look out for more of your work.

I'm loving the book. I just recently became aware of this band called Earth, which is like country and western doom metal moving at the pace of molasses. It's really beautiful and sweet. I have REALLY been enjoying doing these two things at the same time. It kind of feels like going to the movies.

The Drop Edge of Yonder is like reading the screenplay of The Wild Bunch remade with David Lynch directing instead of Sam Peckinpah. Highly recommended.