http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2016/08/review-of-roadside-bodhisattva-by-paul.... ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Based both on the way it starts and on the reputation of its publisher, I kept eagerly waiting during the first half of Paul Di Filippo's Roadside Bodhisattva for the book to reveal itself as the bitter, witty parody of terrible undergraduate-quality Jack Kerouac ripoffs that I thought it was; but then as the book kept continuing and continuing, I sadly came to realize that it's not a parody at all, but rather actually is a terrible undergraduate-quality Jack Kerouac ripoff, almost not worth describing because of its cliche-ridden storyline being fairly easily guessed on your own. (Young dissatisfied vagabond teams up with wizened road hippie; the two end up at a small-town diner where their manual labor and interactions with the members of White Trash Central Casting teach them lessons about life more valuable than anything the "squares" could "grok" from their "button-down Madison Avenue lives, maaaaannn." Seriously, that's it; that's the entire story, told without even the slightest hint of self-aware irony.) Thoroughly not recommended, and a real disappointment from the usually great PS Publishing.

Out of 10: 2.6 ( )