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Well, I was definitely expecting a lot more from this book.
The story seems promising, at first. It begins with the main character, Smithy, forced into a turning point in his life. And I really wanted him to make it through.
However, the more I read, the more frustrated with this book and character I became. I can appreciate a difficult character. I rather like deeply flawed and imperfect characters. But this character's flaws weren't actually his and were instead the author's. What should have been Smithy's main obstacle was to not let life "bounce" him around. At one time he even states that he's going to try and stop this from happening to him. Yet, that's exactly what happens to him throughout the book and the concept is dropped. The bike trip, his ultimate "journey" just kind of happens and there is no clear definite choice on his part. Even his relationship with Norma, his only friend, seems to be in the fashion of his old life. He just has no one else to call because he never made any friends.
Despite these flaws in the character, that aren't actually character flaws, there were many other things done by McLarty that I would really like to ask him about.

Why the obsession with boobs? What really caught me off guard was that this obsession was not as apparent from the beginning of the book, and then somehow it seemed like every single woman was a pair of breasts. I'm sure some men think this way, but it didn't even seem to go with Smithy's character. And I personally hated it.

Then there are the black people in the book...
I don't even know what to say about it except I felt that I had stepped back into some really bad 70s movie written by someone who had never stepped foot into a black neighborhood and talked to the people who lived there. That really was the line for me. The whole scene in the projects made me want to vomit. (This may have come from McLarty reading to many scripts with unoriginal black characters in it.)

Was this "journey" ultimately worth reading. I'd have to say "what journey?" It seemed like more of an episode in Smithy's life and the only thing accomplished was his easily lost alcoholism, weight, and visions of his sister. So , NO.

There were things I liked about this book too. I really enjoyed his somewhat ambiguous relationship with his sister and family memories. However, I wish it wasn't put in such a formulaic manner. This story had real potential. Perhaps this book seems this way because it's his first novel. I do hope that his later books are better. I don't know if I'd read them though.