Tuesday is (occasionally) Book Promotion Day.
A once best-selling novelist, arrogant and self-centered, is forced by his publishing contract to publicize his new work, starting with a one-week book tour along the West Coast.
Christopher Lathom was a young man when his first book, universally hailed as a masterpiece, first appeared. It was so successful, in fact, that he has been living off the royalties for the past thirty years until eventually he was forced to sell of his own papers to survive and write.
Now he is largely forgotten.
Living in a coastal town in California, he has become somewhat of a recluse, hanging out in coffee shops and bars; not quite rejecting the world, but having no real use for it either.
Finally, with the help of a substantial advance, Lathom has completed his second novel. He is quite confident that the public will think it worth the wait and he will again be the toast of the literary world.
Leery of both bookstores and fans, Lathom is steadfast in his refusal to take the publicity journey laid out for him. But events beyond anyone’s control ultimately render going on a road trip a better idea than staying put. The author is assigned a young, studious media escort to drive him up and down the west coast of the USA.
It will soon become the book tour from hell. Poor attendance and a series of screw-ups render the writer—already petrified to be outside his ritual comforts—humiliated and desolate. This is exacerbated by an unexpected frivolous lawsuit brought against him by an unscrupulous serial litigant.
They are joined along the way by Jasmine, the niece of an executive from Lathom’s publisher. She seems wise beyond her years, but to Lathom she is just one more indignity that he must endure.
As the disastrous, often comical, odyssey continues, the author is convinced he cannot continue the tour—or his life. He is at his wit’s end, but is soon to realize that the path to personal redemption is offered by his two young companions, if he can accept it and overcome his fears and regrets.
Jasmine suggests a mystical path, combined with a more spiritual approach to living.
The media escort hopes to become a writer and turns to Lathom to give him direction. But when he inadvertently reveals a secret of his own, it is Lathom who must contemplate a way forward.
This is a road-trip of unrelenting conflict and surprising twists and turns. Can the novelist Christopher Lathom become the hero of his own story or is he just a remnant of past glory?
On the road again
by Dave Mason April 20, 2021
Christopher Lathom refuses to leave Montecito. Not even for a day.
The stubborn novelist doesn’t want to go on a West Coast bookstore tour mandated by his publisher, but he changes his mind after the debris flow leads to loss of power at his home.
So he hits the road with a driver who simply goes by the name “Blythe” for a tour where everything possible goes wrong. But he’d better be wearing his seatbelt when his journey takes its most dramatic twist.
The way is paved in “Book Drive,” the latest novel by Montecito author Robert Eringer.
Mr. Eringer told the News-Press that “Book Drive” (Bartleby Press, $15.95) was inspired by his road trip to promote his “Motional Blur” (Skyhorse, 2016), the story of a disaffected surfer driving for a black car service from Santa Barbara to Montana.
“Motional Blur” was the first of Mr. Eringer’s road trip novels, which continued with his book “Last Flight Out” (Bartleby Press, 2019).
The writer’s third road trip novel, “Book Drive,” begins with Christopher, an impatient hermit having to deal with a book-signing tour.
Despite the obstacles, Christopher finds himself growing as he racks up more mileage on the road.
“He goes from this curmudgeonly, difficult person who doesn’t want to leave home or socialize with anyone to someone who becomes more accepting of the world and more open to mystical experiences,” Mr. Eringer said.
“But he had to hit rock bottom before he could see the light,” the author explained. “Everything that could possibly go wrong on the book tour does go wrong, so he eventually hits rock bottom and becomes enlightened.”
Mr. Eringer explained he likes using road trips in his novels as a metaphor for his characters’ development.
“It exemplifies how life is about a journey and how important it is to get outside your box and daily rituals and into strange environments when your mind becomes more enlightened and your awareness is heightened because of new stimuli around you,” Mr. Eringer said.
The author stressed his love for road trip novels.
“The one book that stands out, the only book that I’ve read more than twice, is ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac,” Mr. Eringer said. “I was heavily influenced by that when I first read it in the early 1970s.
“I’ve been wanting to travel cross country ever since,” he said. “I still haven’t, but I’m thinking about driving cross country with all three of my road trip books and visiting every bookstore along the way.”
The Montecito author said he’s also a fan of “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck.
Mr. Eringer noted he has chronicled his own road trips on his website, clubhouseonwheels.com, since 2014.
“Wherever I’m traveling, I’m posting photographs, captions and anecdotes on a public blog. I do it for myself, so I have a chronology of the places I’ve been and names I need to remember,” Mr. Eringer said.
The blog inspired Mr. Eringer to develop a manuscript for a nonfiction book on his journeys. So far, he has written 112,000 words for it.
“I may be nearing the end,” Mr. Eringer said. “The working title is ‘Unstuck.’ ”
Mr. Eringer said the bookstores mentioned in “Book Drive” are ones where he has signed books.
“I love independent bookstores,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to find. Browsing for me is a big joy.”
What does he enjoy the most about book tours?
“The food and wine,” Mr. Eringer said, not missing a beat.
Mr. Eringer, a Los Angeles native who grew up in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and London, started his writing career as a reporter. After attending American University in Washington, D.C., he went into the world of newspapers with a reporting job at The American, a London paper, in 1977-78.
His investigative reporting career began with an investigation he did for The Sunday People, a large-circulation newspaper based in London.
“I infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan,” Mr. Eringer said. His undercover work, in which he went to Spartanburg, S.C., and became a KKK officer, led to a 1980 expose that thwarted the KKK’s efforts to start a branch in London.
Mr. Eringer went on to a long career in investigative journalism.
“I always had a good feeling when I was exposing the bad guys,” said Mr. Eringer, whose column, “The Investigator,” ran from 2008 to 2010 in the News-Press.
His nonfiction books have included “Ruse” (Potomac Books, 2008), which was about his exploits working undercover for FBI counterintelligence.
When his journalism career began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Eringer enjoyed the research and investigation more than the writing.
“Over time, just by the sheer practice of writing, I became a) able to enjoy it and b) got better at it,” Mr. Eringer said. “By the mid-1990s, I didn’t think I was ready to write a novel, so I began it as 20-page movie treatment.”
It evolved into his first novel, “Zubrick’s Rock” (National Press Books, 1995).
“It was about a coup d’etat in the Principality of Monaco. It was a comedy, a farce actually,” Mr. Eringer said. “After that, I realized I could do that and continued to write novels.”
Mr. Eringer moved to Montecito in 2001 from Washington, D.C.
“I really believe that the last three books are the best novels I’ve ever written,” he said, referring to his road trip books. “It took me a long time to get there.”
thanks for sending on the interview of you by Dave Mason,,,it was most interesting and well done. You have led a most interesting life, definitely. not even ever close to boring , Robert, I am happy that
fate put us together several years ago on that flight from SBA to PDX . Fate as I have found can be a very good thing as I have found in my journey that has taken me many wonderful places. When one is
"open" lots of very cool things can happen and often do,
ATB
Andy in WA