Inner Tube

A Novel

After a family tragedy, a man chases consolation—or is it oblivion?—by traveling through some seedy locales of place and spirit

Early on in Hob Broun’s second novel, the mother of the unnamed narrator, a failed actress, commits suicide by putting her head through a television. That fact, together with our hero’s desire for his ex-girlfriend’s older sister, prompts a radical departure as he quits his job cataloging old television shows and sets off on a westward journey. Pursuing solace in unlikely places, he embarks on a string of just-as-unlikely romances, including ones with a motel maid and an archaeology professor. But can anything distract him from the painful emptiness within? In the desert, finally free of society, a self-reckoning awaits.

Bracing in its vision, Inner Tube is a fearless and often bitingly funny novel about what happens when our civilized veneers are shed.