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the long version

Down on his luck and disillusioned with the music industry, punk star Billy Mud's listless days are punctuated only by scoring drugs, empty sex, and scribbling brooding profundities in this ever-present notebook. So when he is offered a chance to drive a car from California back to New York - all expenses paid - he gladly accepts. Billy's assignment is to chronicle the trip in words, while Chrissa, an ex-girlfriend he hopes to win back, takes the accompanying photographs. As an opportunity to get out of New York and out of a long-term funk, the trip is irresistible. And if it also provides a chance to get clean and to prove he's a writer, well, all the better. . Author Richard Hell, an originator of punk, a poet, and now a novelist, takes us inside the head of this down-on-his-luck genius as he skids and ricochets his way across America. It is mostly the landscape inside Billy's own head that we see, and that is often a very scary place. Once out on the road, it is not long before our hero is up to his old tricks and we watch horrified and laughing as he slides inexorably toward a chilling, breathtaking denouement.