Nearly destitute after abandoning her job in a small town where she was the subject of public scrutiny and gossip, Andreea takes refuge in her sister’s unwelcoming apartment in Manhattan. Her only hope for a brilliant future is writing the next great American novel. But she has yet to write a line. For months now, she’s been choking on words, deleting them. For months, she’s been dealing with her sister’s desperate pleas to find a job—perhaps she could waitress?—and her own empty mind in front of a blank screen. Desperate to write, desperate to escape, she blows the last of her savings on a one-way ticket on a slow train to California. She figures the isolation of the journey might force her to write, the changing landscape might inspire her, a new adventure might, perhaps, attract better luck. But what if drama unfolds in real life instead of on the page? Can she break her old patterns? Can writing about the past somehow exorcise it? And how exactly will a long detour to West Texas help her writerly cause