the trip is about paying tribute to his wife's spirit of adventure — and not giving up on his own.

"When Tennyson wrote his poem about Ulysses, he said he wanted to 'drink life to the lees.'

"I'm 82. I can't stand sitting in malls, watching the young matrons walking by. There's got to be something more than that."

Asked why he chose the North as his destination, he replied, "Because it's hard."

For all his planning, McIntyre isn't sure what he'll do once he reaches the Arctic coast.

"You couldn't bring flowers up. They'd freeze. Maybe an artificial rose or something. How's that?"exception. Franklin is from a small town in south Alabama about 5 miles from where I grew up and he absolutely nails the people of that area, I actually recognize some of the surnames that he used, too many of them to be coincidental.

Anyway for plot, it centers around two people, a black sheriff's deputy and a poor white man who is the town boogey man after a girl disappears that is on a date with him in high school. These two are childhood friends until circumstances and racism by the white guy's father tears them apart. As adults another girl disappears and everyone suspects white guy, when the deputy goes to pick him for questioning they find him alive but shot in his house. The book starts