Portobello Road

Book excerpt: One man carries the weight of Generation X. Kyle Waterman, a mild-mannered insurance agent from Denver, quits his job and leaves his family to hop the first Greyhound to anywhere. He thought he was escaping, but with the help of a drug-laden Indian named Emerson Redcreek and a macho, arrogant wreck named Bill Capresci, Kyle finds himself transported to the world of Portobello: a Naked Lunch-type universe where gophers talk, drugs are king, and Kyle is the leader of a growing anti-establishment cult called Silverdew Gincane. With members joining at every stop, Kyle’s cult quickly becomes one of the greatest enemies of the U.S. government. He relocates his people to Paraguay--only to have an army and the ghosts of his past follow and destroy him. “A seminal tour de force. DiPietro is on the cutting edge of dangerous fiction with Portobello Road.”