Exciting!! My second book of fiction, A TRIP BY CANOE, will be published in July 2026 by Koehler Books.

CANOE follows my March 2025 historical action-adventure/political thriller novel, DRINKING FROM THE STREAM. 

Set during the tumultuous years between 1968 and 1981, A TRIP BY CANOE opens windows for readers on a vast expanse of little-explored terrain from Kenya to Texas, from Chicago to the Congo, from Detroit to the Alps, from India to to Paris. 

Graphic and gritty, at times heavy and wrenching, CANOE stories have an immersive, “You are there” quality. The narration is crisp and straightforward. This is travel writing but focused on young travelers and their lives, not exotic landscapes. Travel is a fact of their existence, not something from a guidebook. 

CANOE is an unusual book. A sampling:

— a traveler on the Kenya coast is dazzled by the financial acumen of three Australians

— two young men buy a decrepit dugout and set off on a journey down the Congo River

— a student fights with police in Chicago and later carries a letter for revolutionary guerrillas.

One week after graduating college I left America. I hitchhiked. Worked in construction. Hung out. Mostly in Africa. When I got home five years later my mother questioned me. She was very persistent. “What did you actually do over there?” Where had I been? Whom did I meet? Who were my friends? Was I ever in danger? What had I seen? Was I ever afraid? What was in my mind? What was I thinking? 

I wrote A TRIP BY CANOE and DRINKING FROM THE STREAM  to answer my mother. Like STREAM, the unfinished manuscript of CANOE for years was shlepped around the world from one umpteen foreign service assignment after another.

I began writing CANOE in the Congo but mostly wrote the manuscript after hours in a Boston elevator service company on a primitive (by today’s standards) first-gen PC. Like, I told myself, William Faulkner’s literary exertions in Oxford, Mississippi while working the night shift at a power plant. 

Also like STREAM, CANOE is an anthem to my generation, those who grew up in the ‘sixties and left home to explore the world, trudging month after month over bad roads with little money, while making their way in life. CANOE explores the unexpected, unpredictable consequences – good and bad – of personal decisions; the enduring blessings of friendship;  the joys of discovery, and the persistence of evil in the world. 

Major themes in CANOE — 

— International Travel & Adventure/Backpacking

— Youthful Rebellion/Eastern Religions

— Politics/Revolution/Guerrilla War/Dictatorship

— Ethnic Hatred/Racism/Genocide/Mass Murder

— Mountaineering/Bicycle racing

— Europe/India/South Africa/Apartheid/post-colonial Africa

— Interracial Love/Relationships

— African Politics/Colonialism/Ethiopia/Kenya/Uganda/Congo