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J Michael Straczynski's Together We Will Go – A Novel For July 2021

Published Wed, 16 Dec 2020 09:56:00 -0600

J Michael Straczynski has his first prose novel in twenty years coming out in the summer, Together We Will Go. The creator of Babylon 5, Jeremiah and Sense 8, author of Changeling, the first Thor movie, Underworld Awakening and World War Z films, as well as Superman, Wonder Woman Spider-Man and Thor comics, and his own The Resistance, Rising Stars, Midnight Nation and Dream Police comic books, spoke about Together We Will Go two years ago, saying,

We're keeping it close to our vests at this point. It's controversial subject matter within a non-standard, non-linear format… It can go wrong in a number of startling ways, but the challenge is the whole purpose of doing it. I'm not known for writing mainstream novels. I figured, let's go outside the box a bit.

J Michael Straczynski's Together We Will Go - A Novel For July 2021 — Credit: J Michael Stracsynski

Well, it's all engines go now. On Facebook, J Michael Straczynski posted;

Twelve strangers, united by their decision to walk off the Earth together, embark on one last cross-country ride. Among them: a young woman with chronic pain disorder, a gentle coder with blue skin and a literal hole in his heart, a bipolar raver, and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one.

Along the way they discover beauty, joy, tragedy, hope and a love that will profoundly affect the decision that awaits them at the end of their journey.

By turns tragic, quirky, funny, heart-wrenching and profoundly moving, we experience their lives firsthand through their journals, texts, emails, and transcribed voice recordings.

TOGETHER WE WILL GO is a love letter to the human heart that speaks to our strengths, frailties, and hopes for the future…a story about endings and beginnings and the journey we all share on the road we ride together. Coming July 6, 2021 from Simon & Schuster/Gallery/Scout Press.

And it is listed with the following description;

The Breakfast Club meets The Silver Linings Playbook in this powerful, provocative, and heartfelt novel about twelve endearing strangers who come together to make the most of their final days, from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author J. Michael Straczynski.

Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world.

The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip.

By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.

And it can be preordered right here if that's the kind of thing you are into. And I think you might just be.

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