Knottspeed: A Love Story

Johnson’s (Everything Under the Moon) second novel drops readers into the unpredictable world of the infamous and mysterious Knottspeed. The story begins in the middle of a string of unfortunate and poorly planned escapades with Knottspeed waking up in his dilapidated house, hurt, hungover, and barely able to walk. As one of Knottspeed’s unwitting accomplices puts it, readers are dropped into the “middle of the opera” without knowing what started this odd man on his destructive path or what his endgame will be. Through dark, sarcastic humor glazed with cynical insights into the human condition, Johnson turns readers into confused collaborators in the outlandish, death-defying schemes through which Knottspeed drags his broken body. The object of his destructive search through Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles slowly comes to the forefront as he careens from bar to bar: a mysterious woman named Maria. Knottspeed is trying to find her with the aid of a paid friend named Fencepost Beckenshire, a slew of angry cab drivers, and a doctor who has lost his way. Bullets fly, knives are drawn, and death is waiting to join the fray as the characters cuss, fight, and drink their way out of the dull, uneventful lives they had led before Knottspeed arrived. Will they survive the chaos? Will they survive Knottspeed? All roads collide in Johnson’s irreverent, chaotic novel, with an ending that will leave readers stunned. (Feb.)