The Journey

A middle-aged Toronto journalist runs away from his pregnant girlfriend in Rasmussen’s uneven debut. Raiden, acting on a vague plan to connect with a former lover in California, leaves a note for his Colombian girlfriend, Clea, before crossing into the U.S., where he hitches a ride with sex worker Brianna and ends up in Tennessee. He accepts a questionable offer for a special tour of Elvis’s Graceland mansion, and quickly discovers that his guide does not have the access he claims. After this episode, Raiden’s bag containing all his possessions is stolen at a diner, and later he is raped in a truck stop bathroom. The assailant is unidentified, though he suspects it was the truck driver who’d just given him a ride. Raiden then makes his way to Texas to track down Aracelli, a friend he made sharing erotic content on Pinterest. As he seeks comfort from Aracelli, Raiden wonders whether he’s made the right decision in abandoning Clea. The women in the story are only props for Raiden’s journey of self-discovery (he says he’d like to “experience” Aracelli) and the tonal shift from zany road trip to traumatic aftermath is likely to give readers whiplash. Still, it’s a realistic and no-holds-barred portrayal of one man’s arrested development. (Self-published)