Thrill-Bent, a novel by Jan Richman -- Book Trailer

In Thrill-Bent, a journalist and armchair thrill-seeker (named Jan Richman) gets a freelance assignment to write about roller coasters that are slated for demolition. She takes off across the U.S. to report on a fanatical subculture, and her picaresque research junket dovetails in California with the wedding of her charismatic, Tourette's-riddled father, whom she hasn't seen in years. Brazen and stingingly funny, Richman recalls the tautly observed mayhem of On the Road and rises to linguistic crescendos to rival A Confederacy of Dunces, as Thrill-Bent zooms from Coney Island to New Orleans to the San Fernando Valley. Along the way, our heroine learns how to be truly impulsive in a tightly buttoned-down world.

• Category

  Entertainment