Robert Ferrigno

• + Bio

  Robert Ferrigno started out as a punk-rock journalist but emerged as a highly praised crime novelist. His first book, The Horse Latitudes (1990), was called “the fiction debut of the season” by Time magazine. He has published eight other novels, most recently The Wake-Up (2004) and Prayers for the Assassin (2006).

• + Back Story

  “ I took my first real road trip when I was 17, unaccompanied, just me and a 20-year-old British two-seater. South Florida to L.A., beach to beach. No credit card, no interstates, no spare tire. I told my parents I wouldn’t need a map; I’d follow the sun until I hit the Pacific.

  “I drove back roads, encountering roadkill and poor dentition. I found that if I drove really, really fast, I didn’t need to put the top up when it rained. I discovered that two Slim Jims and an RC Cola make an acceptable dinner. Ditto breakfast and lunch.

  “On a moonless night in Alabama, I stopped on an empty road and turned off the engine. No house or light in sight, I looked up and saw somebody had spilled the Milky Way all over the place. Never have I felt so insignificant. I drove off, leaning on the horn to announce my existence, and didn’t look up again for a hundred miles.

  “The beaches in L.A. were dirty and the water cold, but the girls’ swimsuits were even smaller than in south Florida. It was the best trip I ever had.”