Jude Bumgardner > Recent Status Updates

A deeply contemplative story. I’m hooked 🪝

Parts of this story are a little slow, but if you stick with it, it gets better. Sal, despite his flawed views about women and POC, he is a complicated and lovable character, I think. There’s something both terribly sad and enviable about his loneliness. A man lost beyond all reason and free as the naked wind.

Reading On the Road feels like a balancing act. At times, Sal’s dusty and unfinished charm reels me in and I can’t help but feel a mixed sense of pity and wonder at his wild and free life. Other times, he makes me sick with some racist or chauvinist comment, good intentions be damned. Overall, I’m happy I picked this book up, if nothing more than to try to feel the pulse of that wacky post-war era.