Personal growth novel; drama | Baker, USA, 2020.
Main characters
Ethan is a young nomadic motorcyclist and former auto mechanic. He travels the States and leads a life of expediency on the edge of legality. Red and Viola own a gas station at the intersection of two interstates that cross the desert, in a deserted and inhospitable place. The three are united by their young age, impatience with conformity and the rules of the system, and an underlying indolence that they cannot recognize and deal with.
The call to adventure
Ethan's motorcycle breaks down, and if it were not for Red, who happens to cross his path and stops to assist him, he would be stranded in the desert. Ethan, a guest in the house adjacent to the couple's gas station, immediately establishes a morbid sexual relationship with Red. The two are physically attracted to each other. Viola, initially unaware, is slowly drawn into the relationship of the two.
The conflict
The threesome is something intriguing to everyone, but no one can handle it. For Ethan it is an anchor that locks him in that desert mansion. For Red it is difficult to stifle the jealousy he feels at seeing Ethan and Viola, but passion always gets the better of him. For Viola, her husband's homosexuality is a discovery that becomes increasingly unpleasant for her as the days pass.
The key to the plot
In a forgotten place, hot and stuffy, a sexual passion erupts that disrupts the lives of the three. It is a spiral that drags everyone into a hell of emotions that are difficult to handle. No one sees a future, and in the last orgy a quarrel breaks out that becomes a brawl and the three threaten to kill each other.
Eventually each will take a different path: Red will leave his wife and return to live in Los Angeles. Ethan will pick up the motorcycle and continue where he left off. Viola will remain alone, stuck in that gas station in the middle of the desert, from which she cannot get away.
The alternatives
This kind of plot plays with sexuality, pushing passion to the limit, to the point where normality, relationships, and life choices are questioned. You can change a lot of this plot, not only the place and time, but also the characters and their connections. What matters is pushing them to the extreme limit to force them to make a choice of priorities.
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