Roller Coaster

This first novel by Peter Diggs centers around Ethan Daniels, who as a boy struggles to gain attention and affection from his dysfunctional family. When his father, a teacher, is caught having sex with a pupil the family disintegrates: ...the first calamity struck and everybody scattered like drops of water on a hot griddle. Ethan's moves to his grandfather's when his mother, depressed because of her husband's infidelities, commits suicide. At his grandfather's Ethan first reads Kafka, subsequently developing an affinity toward him: An affinity and a sense of empathy grew toward him as I read of his separateness from the world: it was as if I was reading about myself. Ethan leaves on a pilgrimage to Prague to honor Kafka. He meets a woman and consequently becomes involved in her complicated life. The principles that Kafka lived by provides Ethan with a model to help him in his struggles to shape his own identity. The culmination of his struggles concludes with an interesting and most unexpected twist.