Together We Will Go
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The Breakfast Club meets The Silver Linings Playbook in this powerful, provocative, and heartfelt novel about twelve endearing strangers who come together to make the most of their final days, from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author J. Michael Straczynski.
Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world.
The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip.
By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A crew of strangers embark on a suicide mission in screenwriter Straczynski's disappointing debut. After failed novelist Mark Antonelli's latest rejection, he decides suicide is an ideal vehicle for creation and places an online ad inviting others to board a bus destined for a nosedive off a California cliff. Twelve struggling souls agree to join up and sign Mark's release form: each rider must "be serious about killing yourself... no tourists or last-minute backsies," and also agree to "upload to the WiFi hotspot on the bus, and periodically update it." While the reasons for choosing suicide vary, the characters are all one-dimensional. Karen is plagued by mysterious body pains; Tyler is a kind coder suffering from a fatal disease; Lisa is a hard-partying bipolar maniac; Vaughn is a geriatric 66-year-old filled with remorse; Shanelle is a young, overweight misfit. But rather than explore each character's tortuous decision, the narrative is propelled by a ridiculous chase as the folks on the bus evade authorities to accomplish their mission. Though Straczynski's odd conceit has the makings of black comedy, it mostly crashes and burns.
Customer Reviews
Harrowing
One of the most creatively structured stories I’ve ever read. Absolutely wonderful, but haunting.