Presidio

ΓÇ£A fluent,mordantauthenticpropulsive narrative wonderfully lit from within by an intriguing main character…The Texas of the novel…has been written about beforeand very well. Kennedy rises to the challenge and succeeds so well that Larry McMurtry and James Lee Burke have offered their praise.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöLee ChildThe New York Times Book Review Set in the 1970s in the vast and arid landscape of the Texas panhandlethis 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 brotherHarlansearch for his wifewho has run away with the little money he had. When they steal a station wagon for the journeythe brothers accidentally kidnap Martha Zachariasa Mennonite girl asleep in the back of the car. Martha turns out to be a stubborn survivor who refuses to be sent homeso together these unlikely road companions attempt to escape across the Mexican borderpursued by the police and MarthaΓÇÖs vengeful father. The story is told partly through TroyΓÇÖs journalin which he chronicles his encounters with con artistsdown-and-outersand roadside philosopherspeople looking for fast moneyhuman connectionor 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 motelsstealing from men roughly his sizeliving 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 childgorgeously written scenes that probe the soul of the American Westand an austere landscape as real as any characterPresidio packs a powerful punch of anomiedark humorpathosand suspense.