My novel The Highway West is currently in a campaign on Amazon Scout.  (If you haven’t had a chance, please consider checking it out and nominate it if you like it.)  My so-called marketing plan to gather additional nominations is to post a weekly blog about the book, the universe, and aspects of how I wrote it.

Music was medium where my friends and I learned to express fears and yearnings that we weren’t mature enough to grasp, much less verbalize like rational people.  We had to tape songs from the radio until we had the cash to buy the cassettes.

The title of this novel comes from a dream line in the song The End as performed by the doors.  The imagery in the song captured my imagination.  I knew that one day that I wanted to ride that mysterious “highway west” Morrison crooned about.

The characters in The Highway West have a complicated relationship with music as a metaphor for that yearning and exploring what might be on the other side of that hill.  Each chapter title is a reference to a song as thought the entire novel is one long roadtrip.

Here’s the mixtape for The Highway West as a Spotify playlist.

Chapter One: Never Going Back
Chapter Two: The Terror of Knowing
Chapter Three: Children of Tomorrow Live in the Tears That Fall Today
Chapter Four: We Laugh Like Soft, Mad Children
Chapter Five: Black Magic Woman
Chapter Six: Bound by Wild Desire
Chapter Seven: Whispered Words of Wisdom
Chapter Eight: Lived and Learned From Fools and Sages
Chapter Nine: The Highway West
Chapter Ten: The Devil Haunts a Hungry Man
Chapter Eleven: Streetlight People
Chapter Twelve: The Strength of Street Knowledge
Chapter Thirteen: What Is This Thing That Builds Out Dreams?
Chapter Fourteen: All My Pictures Fade to Black and White
Chapter Fifteen: A Magic Man
Chapter Sixteen: Empty Places
Chapter Seventeen: Lay Your Weary Head to Rest