What do we find when being lost?

English edition.

Gone South by Robert R. McCammon.

What to say about a book written in despair? Oh, I feel you and it’s amazing. Not because of the despair, but what he does about it, and that is the gist of Gone South, of the intent and the result.

This book touched a tender spot for me and always remained after that, it is not the classic McCammon of horror, neither the great thriller / historical fiction that came afterwards (the foreword in the book is very telling), it’s a writer evolving, breaking free.

This is a road trip through hell. Dan Lambert is a man who has been through a lot of bad stuff and it is about to get worse, and it does, everything goes terrible wrong and has to flee, even two of the most peculiar bounty hunters ever are behind him, after a reward for him is offered. And it is here, in this extreme situation where everything is lost, trying to find a way out, that he meets Arden, whose life is also hell, so they bond in this journey while holding the last bit of hope, through a strange passage: the south.

The south is very fitting in every sense; it gives the book the precise atmosphere to thrive. It felt dreamy, strange, and dangerous. While they get deeper, the characters got more fleshed, the bounty hunters are surprisingly interesting, not just funny and the bad guys, this becomes a very humane journey that changes everybody involved.

In dark times many people have their share of despair and it is hard to break free, like Dan Lambert we hurry to barely try to avoid some terrible end and sometimes we are changed, facing ourselves and founding this whole new place. It is a journey of redemption too.

An amazing read, you will laugh, and clench your teeth, worry, hope and maybe, find yourself something.