The Roadmap of Loss
A road trip across America, following in the footsteps of the father who abandoned him, leads young Mark Ward to new peace and understanding.
by Liam Murphy
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Pub Date Jan 03 2024 | Archive Date Nov 30 2023
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Description
It’s 1997 in Melbourne, Australia, and Mark Ward is struggling to make sense of the world following the sudden death of his mother. His father, Dylan, had abandoned him and his mother when Mark was still a child, and Mark has always believed he died in a car accident shortly afterwards. For most of his life, he has carried an unjustifiable sense of guilt about his father’s absence, overlaid with memories of him as a cruel and unloving man.
Clearing out his mother’s house, a bereft, rapidly deteriorating Mark is shocked to discover a collection of letters written to her by Dylan – some of which postdate his supposed death. Discussing life and love, fears and dreams, set against the backdrop of his bohemian travels across the United States, Dylan’s letters become beacons for Mark, who sees in them a final chance to achieve closure, as well as his own redemption. With a burning suspicion that Dylan may still be out there, Mark decides to retrace the journey taken by his estranged father twenty years earlier.
Moving through the country with only a beat-up car as company and the letters of a stranger for guidance, Mark is faced with the enormity and polarity of late nineties America. Bouncing from one city and bizarre situation to the next, he encounters a tapestry of people along the way – many of them eccentric, some malign, some nurturing, others as lost as he is. Alone in a foreign land, the search for peace soon becomes a battle with loneliness, addiction and nihilism as Mark begins to see in himself reflections of the father he grew up resenting.
Raw and uncompromising, The Roadmap of Loss explores human fallibility and vulnerability, the courage of letting go of the past, and the power of forgiveness.
Advance Praise
'Beautifully structured, imaginatively conceived... a compelling story of loss, failure and self-destruction - but also about human resilience, and how grace can appear from the most unexpected places.' - Debra Adelaide
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781760688295 |
| PRICE | A$32.99 (AUD) |
| PAGES | 368 |
Featured Reviews
Lori Lutes (, Reviewer
The Roadmap of Loss by Liam Murphy is highly recommended literary fiction which explores loss, past hurts, and a search for answers.
It is 1997 in Melbourne, Australia. Mark Ward is struggling, drinking too much and torturing himself trying to deal with the death of his mother. His father, Dylan, abandoned them when Mark was five. His mother told him Dylan went to the USA and died in a car accident there. Mark remembers his parents arguing and drinking, so his memories of his father are not happy ones. He feels guilty about his father leaving and now his mother dying.
When cleaning out his mother's house Mark is shocked to find a box full of letters written by Dylan to his mother. Many of the letters were written after his supposed death as he traveled around America. In the letters Dylan honestly discusses his life, love, fears, and dreams. They portray a man quite different from the one Mark thought he knew. Dylan loved his wife and son. Mark decides to leave and go the the USA as his father did and begins a journey of his own while slowly reading the letters.
The Roadmap of Loss is a well-written classic road trip novel. Seemingly Mark aimlessly travels around the USA, but he is also in many ways retracing the journey his father took. As he journeys through a foreign country in a wreck-of-a-car, he is drinking too much and meeting a wide variety of people along the way. He may be searching for answers, but he is really facing his own loneliness, disbelief, and failings while on what appears to be the road to his own self destruction - unless he can find the way to forgiveness and peace he is desperately seeking.
Mark is definitely portrayed as a fully realized, believable character. Even while he is making poor choices and bad decisions, readers will be rooting for him to find peace and some sense of how he can move on and make a life for himself. This is a good choice for those who like road-trip novels involving flawed characters seeking closure.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Echo Publishing via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
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