One of the job hazards of being a writer is that people frequently ask you for reading recommendations. However, in my experience, they’re not always interested in the books you’re actually reading.
Take, for example, the recent award-winning road novel A Horse Named Sorrow by Trebor Healey. Set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the book follows the journey of a young man who gets on a bike and sets out from San Francisco to Buffalo, New York, to return his lover’s ashes to his hometown. Along the way, Healey paints a vivid picture of San Francisco grappling with the ravages of the AIDS epidemic. At the same time, Healey adeptly depicts the rush of sexual desire as well as the pangs of mourning.