<div>A two year old mystery. A missing daughter. A cross country road trip. Chris, an aerospace engineer, is on a mission. He abandons his life in Savannah and drives west. Along the way, first in New Orleans and then in Austin, he picks up passengers.<br><br>Julia, a Czech woman fleeing a boyfriend and business partner, and JC, the daughter of a Baptist minister, who on a manic whim joins them and leaves her life in Austin behind. Displaced, in flight from their respective pasts, with Chris planning a revenge he may not have the nerve or the opportunity to exact, the three form shifting alliances and friendships as they drive across Texas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California.<br><br>In Los Angeles, they rent a house in Venice Beach and explore the city—graveyards, art districts, the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, Catalina Island, bars, boardwalks, promenades, tar pits, dances clubs, flight museums. On Christmas Eve in a Holmby Hills mansion, the story culminates in a confrontation with the man Chris believes to be partly responsible for the disappearance of his daughter.<i>Degenerate</i> is a road trip novel out of Kerouac and Nabokov, a comedy of revenge and satire about Los Angeles that brings to mind Nathaniel West and a story of love and loss at turns lyrical, hilarious and heartbreaking.<br><br>“George Williams's <i>Degenerate</i> makes broke-back poetry out of desiccated American landscapes, and argues persuasively for the sanity of an off-kilter existence. A rollicking, bracing, and wholly original debut.”--<b>Tracy Daugherty</b>, author of<i>Woman in the Oil Field </i>and<i> What Falls Away</i><br><br>“The term ‘original voice’ is over-used and misapplied to many fiction debuts that are really nothing new. Not in this case.<i>Degenerate</i> is like nothing you’ve ever read. George Williams is a brilliant writer, and this is a brilliant book.”--<b>Larry Fondation</b>, author of<i>Angry Nights, Common Criminals, </i>and<i> Fish, Soap and Bond</i></div><p></p>