The Book of Maps: A Novel

by Ernest Thompson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781957831107
Publisher:	Global Collective Publishers
Publication date:	05/28/2024
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ernest Thompson has written numerous films, plays and songs, and has worked extensively as an actor and director. In addition to his Oscar for On Golden Pond, Ernest’s work has won two Golden Globes, a Writers Guild Award, a Broadway Drama Guild Award and been nominated for a Tony, an Emmy and a British Academy Award. His plays have been seen in theaters around the world, his most enduring, On Golden Pond, translated into 30 languages and presented in more than 40 countries. He currently is developing Cries of Valor in Defiance, depicting life in the pandemic and, with his writer wife Kerrin Thompson, has established Rescind Recidivism, a prison writing program designed to give inmates a chance to feel creative as well as human, capable and worthy.

Editorial Reviews

Ernest Thompson’s novel depicts the ultimate road trip in a rapturous torrent of language that captures the torrent of thoughts we carry with us as we plunge forward through life. All those suspect attributes emblazoned on so many book jackets are actually deserved here: The Book of Maps is authentically 'fearlessly original', 'laugh-out-loud funny', and 'profound.'

Caroline Alexander

The Book of Maps does take us across country, but our real travelling is through the dissolution of family and the invincibility of parental bonds. Guided by a hapless writer and a precocious child, fueled by Ernest Thompson’s artful prose, our journey is filled with imagination and hilarity, recklessness and courage, inspiration and love. And it’s a hell of a ride.

Jessica Hoffmann Davis

A good father despite himself; a forgiving child despite it all. Their adventures will make you worry, weep, and laugh out loud.

Carly Simon

A remarkable compilation of parenting, humor, entertainment and deep emotion.

Shirley MacLaine

Ernest Thompson has put his cinematic viewfinder to potent use and written a very funny and deeply moving novel. Take a trip across the country without leaving your home, meet a glorious group of wondrous characters filled with hopes and dreams, and dig deep into the pains and understandings of family dynamics.

Robert Greenwald