Western Roads is Michael Walsh's semiautobiographical tale of wanderlust, friendship, and murder. The story follows Walsh and his confederate, Othello Bolen, who flee Minneapolis after a violent incident in St. Paul. They meet a few years later in California and boil toward the climactic finish. The work is experimental, urgent; hot as a bebop jazz solo. It drips with multifarious characters Walsh meets while rambling. His hatred of institutions, his struggle with depression, and above all, his insatiable desire to "see what's out there, "to move," give the story plenty of action, whether it be hitchhiking, train hopping, or driving a dilapidated Mustang. "The tar roll was my sanctuaire. My Muse. My mentor. Passage to the bright midnight's pageant of actors, scenes--and I got to play a part."