What Remains is a latter-day road book, travel in the extreme – old man, old motorcycle, thousands of miles of old broken roads. Mountains and deserts and small town America, three hundred potholed miles at a time.
Off-center characters in the out-of-the-way places where they carve out an existence. The grit and grace it takes to get by, the natural beauty that revives affection for people as they are.
It is also a memoir of getting old, sunburn and heartache at the end of the day, nothing left but the attention he brings to himself and the folks having dinner at the next table. The clarity that comes with solitude and survival, the glacial attrition of age on body, brainpan, capacity to dream.
What Remains is an old man’s solitary answer to On the Road, that territory out beyond the mate seeking and resume building and family raising that dominate the mid-section of life. How to navigate loss and diminishment, the dark certainty of death? It is a journey that reignites a sense of adventure about aging itself, the ingredients of a mindful and passionate life.
All this and a crash in Death Valley too.
