Departure Lounge a Novel

The Mid-Eighties. No Cell Phones No Email No Caller Id No Gps. It Was Easier Then To Pass Without Notice To Be Out Of Touch To Get Lost. The Berlin Wall Still Stood As Did The World Trade Center And Michael Reid Embarks On What Even He Concedes To Be A Spate Of Obsessive Travel: Scandinavia The Persian Gulf South Asia Back Home To The Ozarks Then Off Again To Greece Eastern Europe And Egypt. Along The Way He Writes Letters About What He’S Seeing And What He’S Thinking To Three Friends: Anna Browning A Mathematician In Tallahassee Who Thinks Of Michael Less Fondly Than He Thinks Of Her; Richard Randolph Michael’S Baseball-Watching Pal Who Leads A Comfortable—Perhaps Too Comfortable—Life As A Law Professor In Albuquerque; And Marie Cochran A Middle-School Social Studies Teacher In Rural New Mexico Who Is Michael’S On-Again-Off-Again Lover. These Three All Know Michael But They Don’T Know Each Other. And Against The Background Of Michael’S Travels And His Letters Their Lives Become Curiously Even Mysteriously Intertwined Changed In Ways That Michael Himself Can’T Imagine.