Captain Zzyzx

by Michael Petracca

In Michael Petracca's dangerously antic Doctor Syntax, the wry narrator, Harmon Nails III, tracks a stolen heirloom while questing for sexual and academic fulfillment. Captain Zzyzx reprises Harmon Nails, this time as a rhythm & blues guitarist in search of an even more priceless and elusive quarry -- intimacy. The only things standing in Harmon's way are his own poisonous ambivalence, a sweatsock full of prescription painkillers, a friend's fatal encounter with an out-of-control minivan, a lively but reticent redhead named Tanya Scott, and a lost tortoiseshell flatpick Harmon must find before he can achieve true inner peace.

191 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 1992