About the Book
A young man searching for the meaning of life takes an unforgettable cultural and spiritual journey in the Great Southwest. Matthew was raised by a fervently religious Anglo father and Mexican mother. He believes he has been called by God to spread the gospel among the indigenous Tarahumaras in northern Chihuahua, Mexico. So he leaves his family and his sweetheart Dotty behind to walk “like Jesus walked.” He hikes and occasionally hitchhikes through the remote southern New Mexico desert and the rugged Sierra Madre into the Copper Canyon area. He works with a family of Tarahumara people by day and converses with his newfound friend Jesús long into the night. Matthew’s faith begins to waver and, finding himself in a sea of ambiguity, he decides to return home. During his return he has several traumatic experiences that compel him to do things that would have been unthinkable before his journey. He has a run-in with drug traffickers and kills one of them; he is mugged twice and loses his faith in the goodness of mankind; his financial resources diminish, compelling him to collaborate in a robbery. In short, his life becomes what before his journey would have been virtually unthinkable. Physically drained, when he is home and sees Dotty, he can do no more than weakly whisper her name. And the novel ends. Has he learned anything meaningful and will the changes in him be for the better? The reader is left with a choice from among multiple interpretations.