Andrew Smith

Eleven-year-old Sam Abernathy, extremely overprotected and a reluctant celebrity since he was trapped in a well at age four, dreams of becoming a chef and starts by entering a local cook-off.

Virgil First Raise wakes in a ditch on the hardscrabble plains of Montana. He stumbles home to his ranch on the reservation only to learn that his wife, Agnes, has left him. Worse, she's stolen his beloved rifle. Virgil sets out to find her, beginning an odyssey of inebriated intrigues with a mysterious "Airplane Man," a beautiful barmaid, and two dangerous men in suits. His quixotic, modern-day vision quest moves Virgil ever closer to oblivion --...