Vikram Chandra's first novel is a story about exile, about the hunger for experience and the ache for return that mark the beginning and end of all journeys, and about the processes of personal redefinition implicit in such migrations.

In a feat of magnificent invention, it links epic history - and the tale of a culture spiraling toward a moment of unspeakable violence - with the fates of three college students road-tripping across America on the trail of the ultimate adventure, high on the pleasures of the open road.