fernweh (fern-way) n.
1. An ache for distant places
2. Being homesick for anywhere but home
This is a sad story about love and longing in America.
This is a funny story about stumbling across America.
This is a falling down barn.
This is what happens in between innings.
This is a picture of America hanging crooked on the wall.
Fernweh is the story of Jackson Hoffman, the phone call he answers, and the road trip he takes with Ana Riviera. A love story, an ode to baseball, a defense of good religion, and a journey through an America that doesn’t quite work, Fernweh is filled with living, breathing characters and pitch-perfect dialogue. At once angry and confident, lost and bewildered, smitten and heartbroken, Jackson’s heart beats through the pages as he fights to make sense of a life he worries is going down the drain.
My name is Jackson Hoffman. I think it’s July 8, 2014, but I guess it could be the ninth. I’m standing in a bathroom in Erie, Pennsylvania. I’m looking in the mirror. I don’t like what I see.
I drove here from Chicago with Ana, but now I don’t know where Ana is.
Thank you for reading. Next week’s chapter will be longer and it starts with a question: America, have you ever driven east out of Chicago along Interstate 90, across northern Indiana and northern Ohio?
See you then.