Real Gone

Attempting to combine color photos and story in a fashion that filters the road literature of Kerouac through the sensibilities of Jim Jarmusch and Generation X, Pierson and Lewis ( Sister ) have instead produced a helter-skelter non sequitur, a patchwork quilt of uninspired camera work and arty, airy observations about a journey to Las Vegas conveyed in a rambling style that's virtually incomprehensible. The story, such as it is, is structured as a letter and describes the authors' bargain-basement road trip from Hollywood to Las Vegas, mixing impressions of the journey with the saga of an ex-lawyer named Hoyt who built a famous house that was turned into a resort hotel after he courted a woman named Sarah who subsequently abandoned him. From there, the plot jumps to a sequence in which the two travelers are arrested for driving a stolen car, sprinkled with impressions of various oddballs they meet along the way. The photos seem designed to be avant garde in a style that's simultaneously ordinary and strange; but without a coherent story to support, there's little reason to give them a second glance. (June)