The Book of Maps

In Academy and Golden Globe winner Ernest Thompson’s debut novel, Brendan Tibbet, a filmmaker whose luck has run low, takes his 10-year old son Brenlyn on a wild and hilarious road trip across the country. The two-week trek from LA to New Hampshire across a dozen and more states includes the prescribed photo ops of the northern route - Yosemite, the Great Salt Lake, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - but it’s the interior journey that’s enlightening, heartwarming and life changing-the father and son duo having to stick it out together in the confines of the car and its ticking clock demanding to know when the errant dad will summon the courage to ruin the boy’s equilibrium with the news that his mother and father are getting divorced.

At a yard sale, Brendan had bought an ancient tome, The Book of Maps, published in the ‘30s, its seductive allure speaking of time gone by and of unexplored possibilities, but it’s a tough sell getting a ten-year-old excited about being cooped-up in a car for 3,000 miles, especially with no DVD or video games, just Mark Twain on tape and the wide-open majesty of America. In negotiation, Brendan promises that they’ll stop every 90 minutes, rain or shine, and play a sport, football, baseball, lacrosse, frisbee. Brendan doesn’t mention that they’ll assume new identities at every state line; that’ll be a surprise. And a chance for an old storyteller and a burgeoning one to keep their unwritten narrative fresh and alive. And amusing.

Brendan assures the boy that each state will be an adventure, and on the second day proves it, seeing the kid washed downriver in fast-moving rapids, then foolishly putting them both in danger by refusing to back down to the massive grizzly invading their campsite. But that’s Brendan, impetuous and foolhardy, inciting trouble wherever he goes, a man with demons and bubbling angst; ergo, poor casting for either marriage or parenthood. His ex-wife gives him a mixed-message One for the Road, temporarily delaying the inevitable and delaying also Brendan’s departure time. He and Brenlyn are already a day behind before they get started and have to settle for a night in a Fresno motel, in which Brendan insists on erecting the tent regardless. He’s made a promise and he sticks to it. Brendan had begun his career writing for a bad TV series filmed in Yosemite National Park. His bad episode was called “The River Rescue” and he finds himself replicating its low-imagination highlight by leading Brenlyn through too-deep water in the freezing Merced, and then forced to play the ill-equipped hero. The show had a bear, declawed and defanged, but the real-life marauder is neither and still Brendan can’t resist tempting fate, only to be bailed out by Brenlyn’s cunning diversionary tactics involving Fritos and a calmer disposition.

Once the father-son team reach their final destination, Brendan is the one who has had a life changing trip. When he takes on teaching full-time, he recognizes a latent calling and when he allows love to resurface, from a woman in the math wing, he has another realization: Maybe that’s how you become a better father, better lover and partner, by learning to be a better man. The journey ends where it started, with Brendan, estranged from his wife and adrift, happening upon a garage sale and unearthing The Book of Maps, out-of-date and falling apart, but, as the woman selling it says, still a good book. It’ll take you where you need to go.