Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 303 pages : map; 22 cm

Summary

1. Set in the 1970s in the vast and arid landscape of the Texas panhandle, this darkly comic and stunningly mature literary debut tells the story of a car thief and his brother who set out to recover some stolen money and inadvertently kidnap a Mennonite girl who has her own reasons for being on the run. Troy Falconer returns home after years of working as a solitary car thief to help his younger brother, Harlan, search for his wife, who has run away with the little money he had. When they steal a station wagon for the journey, the brothers accidentally kidnap Martha Zacharias, a Mennonite girl asleep in the back of the car. Martha turns out to be a stubborn survivor who refuses to be sent home, so together these unlikely road companions attempt to escape across the Mexican border, pursued by the police and Martha's vengeful father. The story is told partly through Troy's journal, in which he chronicles his encounters with con artists, down-and-outers, and roadside philosophers, people looking for fast money, human connection, or a home long since vanished. The journal details a breakdown that has left Troy unable to function in conventional society; he is reduced to haunting motels, stealing from men roughly his size, living with their possessions in order to have none of his own and all but disappearing into their identities. With a page-turning plot about a kidnapped child, gorgeously written scenes that probe the soul of the American West, and an austere landscape as real as any character, Presidio packs a powerful punch of anomie, dark humor, pathos, and suspense.
2. 1970s, in the Texas panhandle. Troy Falconer returns home after years of working as a solitary car thief to help his younger brother, Harlan, search for his wife, who has run away with the little money he had. When they steal a station wagon for the journey, the brothers accidentally kidnap Martha Zacharias, a Mennonite girl asleep in the back of the car. Martha turns out to be a stubborn survivor who refuses to be sent home. The trio attempts to escape across the Mexican border, pursued by the police and Martha's vengeful father. -- adapted from jacket.

Subject

1. Brothers
2. Kidnapping
3. Fiction
4. FICTION > Thrillers
5. FICTION > Action & Adventure
6. Automobile thieves > Fiction
7. Brothers > Fiction
8. Kidnapping > Fiction
9. FICTION > Literary
10. Runaway wives > Fiction
11. Road fiction
12. Texas Panhandle (Tex.) > Fiction

Genre/Form

1. Fiction.
2. Road fiction.

Call number

1. JFD 18-5245

Author

1. Kennedy, Randy, 1967- author.

Title

1. Presidio : a novel / Randy Kennedy.

Publisher

1. New York : Touchstone, 2018.

Copyright date

1. ©2018

Edition

1. First Touchstone hardcover edition.

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Other form:

1. Online version: Kennedy, Randy, 1967- Presidio. First Touchstone hardcover edition. New York : Touchstone, 2018 9781501153884 (DLC) 2017033152

LCCN

1. 2017032629

Other standard identifier

1. 40028446155

ISBN

1. 9781501153860 (hardcover)
2. 1501153862 (hardcover)
3. 9781501153877
4. 1501153870
5. 9781432860769
6. 1432860763

Research call number

1. JFD 18-5245