Millhone, an NYU professor and columnist for Men's Health
, writes about family crises, stress, anxieties and what he calls “our year from hell” when his son nearly died shortly after birth, his father was diagnosed with cancer, his mother died, his dog bit his oldest son in the face and his marriage was crumbling. Millhone felt he had “a subscription to a tragedy-of-the-month club,” so his solution was to buy a car and travel with his dad. On the road, there are flashbacks to old songs, childhood toys, his marriage and his mother: “Mom had a black belt in backhanded compliments.” As for the trip itself, chapter headings are misleading: the “Vicksburg” visit takes place inside an Applebee's and “Katrinaville” offers only a two-paragraph glimpse of New Orleans from the freeway. Millhone occasionally delivers a funny line amid many strained and strange attempts at humor, such as calling the scattering of his mother's ashes “The Sprinkling.” More often, in a curious contradiction, the tragedy cancels out the comedy, and vice versa, while the road trip reads like a postcard scribble. (Aug.)
