The Great Tartakovsky

Twenty-three-year-old Milo T. Featherstone isn’t doing so hot. The one constant in his life, his mother, has just died of ovarian cancer, leaving him feeling hemmed in by his small town Iowa lifestyle, irksomely angry and emotionally adrift. When one day he receives a letter of condolence from his mythological father, The Great Tartakovsky, he makes a decision that changes the entire course of his life. In Milo’s words: "I am all alone in the world, and I refuse to live a life of regret in this small Iowa town, where I will certainly grow old and die without ever having experienced anything substantial. My fate, my destiny, they are on their honor. I am ready to take some chances."

In his quest to forge his future, Milo rides his bicycle to San Francisco, where his wholesome qualities endear him to a stable of friends who operate in a world infinitely larger and more mysterious than anything he’d ever imagined. He finds work as a mechanic in a bicycle shop, wins the heart of the puppet girl, gets thrown in a dumpster, escapes the police by leaping into the bushes, engages in deviant public lovemaking and earns a place by his father’s side. But when the exotic life he’d always wanted begins to crumble around him he is forced to wonder: Is all of this really what’s best for me?

The Great Tartakovsky, is the story of Milo’s quest for experience, of his infatuation, his jealousy, and in the end his struggle to nurture that unique part of himself he never trusted was there. It is a part he grows to like. I think you will too.