Together We Will Go

J. Michael Straczynski

July 2021 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this eBook

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.

Ratings and reviews

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from NetGalley, J. Michael Straczynski, and Gallery-Scout Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I was depressed and sad the first time I started Together We Will Go and set it aside, but I found it interesting and encouraging at a time of a better attitude. New Yorker Mark Antonelli finds himself lost and unwilling to go on. He cannot remember a time he didn't want to die. This time, he has a plan. He buys an old tour bus, has it repaired, hires a driver, and places a discrete ad on several commercial websites. Mark picks a dozen applicants located along his proposed route to California for inclusion on his trip to San Francisco, where he will drop off the driver at the airport and the baker's dozen will drive the bus off a cliff and die together. A trip not to be missed - you will find humor, despair, charm, and generosity among the bus riders, and see them through their trip, often chased by family members and various police determined to stop their arrival in California once their ultimate purpose is exposed. It is a telling trip. Get on the bus.

About the author

J. Michael Straczynski has written hundreds of hours of television, major motion pictures and graphic novels. He is the widely acclaimed creator of Babylon 5, cocreator of Netflix’s Sense8, and writer for Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, which earned him a nomination for a British Academy Award for Best Screenplay (BAFTA). His work has frequently appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, and his extensive list of awards includes the Hugo Award, the Ray Bradbury Award, the Eisner Award, and the GLAAD Media Award. He lives in California.