David Puretz: The Escapist

A novel
It's 2011 in America, the Iraq War is coming to a close, and the Occupy Wall Street movement has been gaining steam. And at twenty-one years of age, Billy Chute is sitting in the breakdown lane on the side of the highway in his '98 Altima with his drugs in the cooler on the passenger sear floor, in the midst of escaping yet another stale reality. Still high on an opioid and amphetamine kick, his new escape crystallizes in a journal entry: Find Dad. And those few simple words seal Billy's fate- what started as another of his impulsive flights becomes a mission, and it terrifies him, for his father is like wildfire, burning all in its path, yet confronting his traumatic past may be Billy's only sustainable way forward.
A propulsive story with profound insights about freedom and imprisonment, motion and stasis, chance and destiny, The Escapist delves deeply into the internal and external calamities that shape this special human life and mind. Mental health, family conflict and abuse, drug addiction, and sexuality are intricately woven together in a turbulent pre-Trump America in this dynamic and layered narrative of violence and hope.