Robert Rope - Excerpts

*This story contains selected excerpts from an original and unpublished novel*

1969.
Rob is twenty-four years old and carries a few questionable episodes in his past: a crime reported in the news, a toxic love affair, and his first band, the Ganflamers.
Drawn in by the Beat Generation, he runs away from Detroit and becomes a roadie. He travels across America and then Europe, chasing a sense of freedom that comforts and wounds him at the same time.

Newport is the stop where a worsening headache forces him to pause and face his own demons.
Between concerts, fleeting encounters, smoky venues, and sleepless nights, Rob drifts through unresolved conflicts, homesickness, and the question that keeps eating at him: What am I doing with my life?

In his notebook he keeps everything -- contacts, hastily scribbled chords, a map, and two dreams: having a family and a band.

Then, an unexpected phone call.
One last job that, passing through the countryside of Bethel, might finally bring him home.
One final trip through American youth, torn between military draft, the need for self-expression, and an adult society that judges what it does not understand.

This is the story of a kind-hearted young man with impaired vision, to whom fate gives exactly what he needs to become a man: peace and music.

A journey to put his inner world in order, to break toxic bonds, to forgive others and himself.
An opportunity to open himself to extraordinary people who reach out and help him move on.

For those who love characters unaware of their own beauty -- authentic, passionate, and unfiltered; for those who see themselves all too clearly in Rob, and for those who never thought they could fall in love again.