Paul Conley

It's a Lackluster Life: on the Road with an American Teen Paul Conley

Jillian is an average fifteen year old who gets the bright idea she wants to take a road trip out West; the problem is that she doesn't drive and must enlist her father as chauffeur. The trip takes them from New York to South Dakota and back. Along the way they make surprising new discoveries about the air quality of New Jersey, the fallibility of Penn State football, President Rutherford B. Hayes, ferris wheels, homeless artists, holocaust museums, wedgies, hippie fiefdoms, port-o-johns, spam, credit cards, Nazi dogs, Drakes Yodels and Wounded Knee. Aside from the hijinx of the road, they also learn some coping tools for the adversity that awaits when they get home. Sometimes funny, sometimes moving and alternatively filled with teenage wonder, angst and boredom, the book reaches for the spirit of Kerouac and the wisdom of Steinbeck; all through the lens of an average American teen.