This may or may not, in fact, be a book.
May 22, 2012 4:11 PM   Subscribe

Name that book!

Asking for a friend, who is trying to remember the title of a book she read a while back. Details:

"It may or may not start out with a guy working in a gas station that gets robbed. Perhaps his father's gas station?

Then he may or may not go to jail, get out, and take a bus somewhere else. A girl on the bus he finds really attractive. Maybe he follows her somewhere?

I know for sure that the main character finds himself in a boarding house type situation, renting an upstairs room from a crazy old widow (she might be a drunk? or he is? someone is definitely a drunk.). There are several other tenants... One is a guy who has a mouse or a bird that lives in a shoe box. One is a really horny lady. I know there's another. The main character keeps his personal items hidden under a loose floorboard? He falls in love with someone (I think?)

I am pretty sure that the setting is rural and somewhere between the 50's and the 70's.

I read the damn thing like, 6 years ago. And I have no idea why now, all of a sudden, I am trying to piece it back together. I'm probably getting the story line mixed up with other books. Good luck. :)"
posted by woodvine to Grab Bag (6 answers total)
 
I think I have a copy of "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Might that be it?
Guy named Sal meets Mexican girl named Terry on a bus to Los Angeles?
Let me read through it again if I can find it and try to get back to you. I Wiki'd it out of curiosity, but the specific details I'll have to read to find.
posted by chongnosall at 6:22 PM on May 22, 2012


Sounds a bit like "Anansi Boys."
posted by cjorgensen at 8:12 PM on May 22, 2012 [2 favorites]


Doesn't match really, but reminded me of "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson.
posted by miles1972 at 8:29 PM on May 22, 2012


Not a book but a few of the plot points align with this story: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201205/george-wright-fugitive-capture-story?printable=true&mobify=0
posted by kris.reiss at 7:59 AM on May 23, 2012


Bukowski's "Factotum"?
posted by veryape at 11:22 AM on May 23, 2012


Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor?
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 9:29 PM on May 24, 2012


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