Aging widower Russ Lanaker knows he doesn't know his neighbors-but when he finds out one of them was a witness to, and career expert on, the strange UFO phenomenon known as the Phoenix Lights, he realizes that's a situation he'd like to change. What follows is an odyssey out of his air-conditioned comfort zone, through the sun-baked Arizona suburbs, and onto the franchise-lined (and not-so-great) American road.
In an existential style reminiscent of Don DeLillo, but with the humor and heart of a Coen Brothers film, Alex Higley takes us along as Russ strikes out in search of knowledge about an alien encounter, and perhaps something far more bizarre-genuine human connection.
"Crisp writing and splendid descriptions of momentous landscapes will carry readers through this journey of loss and learning to live in the moment." - Publishers Weekly
"Alex Higley's Old Open is an adventure and a riddle; a winding tale that's equal parts Coen Brothers and Denis Johnson. A gruff, generous, insightful, very funny book, and I simply loved it." - Lindsay Hunter, author, Eat Only When You're Hungry
"With echoes of DeLillo, Old Open is a deceptively simple novel that rebels against modern disillusionment, capturing nothing less than the texture and flux of life. Higley's subjects include the gap between information and meaning, aliens and alienation, the desire to communicate and the need to feel understood. The result is a funny, moving, and hopeful novel." - Gabe Habash, author, Stephen Florida
"Alex Higley's Old Open is an absurdist road novel, a mediation on loss, and a fractured philosophical quest. This is a compact labyrinth of a book, leading time and time again to the minotaur of Meaning." - James Tadd Adcox, author, Does Not Love
