Arthur Louis Pullman III lives in his grandfather’s shadow. The first Arthur Louis Pullman, an iconic Salinger-esque author who wrote the American classic A World Away, died in Ohio a week after he disappeared from his family’s California home. What happened in that week—and how much his actions were influenced by his advanced Alzheimer’s—remains a mystery. Arthur’s future is crumbling. Stripped of a college scholarship and starting to lose his grip on reality, he’s sent away to live with his aunt and uncle. There, Arthur discovers a journal written by his grandfather through the fog of his dementia, the narrator pining for something he can’t quite understand and the final sentence containing a train route and a destination. Eager to escape his own demons, Arthur embarks on a cross-country train ride, guided only by what he thinks are clues from his grandfather. As he decodes the cryptic writings, he learns there’s a greater story to his grandfather’s life buried beneath his disease. Arthur’s journey is complicated by a shaky alliance with a girl who’s keeping secrets of her own and escalating run-ins with the rabid Pullman fan base. Arthur’s not the only one chasing the truth.


