Not Fade Away

by Jim Dodge (Author), Kevin Sampson (Introduction)

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $11.54

  Floorboard George Gastin is part of an insurance scam to wreck a pure white, mint condition '59 Cadillac originally intended for The Big Bopper as a token of an admirer's love. But Floorboard George has other ideas and when he disappears with the car, gangsters and cops are soon in hot pursuit. On the road, the crazy characters, hitch-hikers and demented preachers he meets provide the high-octane entertainment as George covers many miles -- and states of mind -- in his quest to find the true spirit of rock 'n' roll.

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.25

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $16.83

  Not Fade Away is a rock 'n' roll road novel with rhythm to burn, traveling in time from the Beat era to the dawn of the sixties. George Gastin is a San Francisco tow-truck operator who wrecks cars as part of an insurance scam. One of the cars Gastin is hired to destroy is a snow-white 1959 Cadillac that was supposed to be a present for the Big Bopper, who dies in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Instead, Gastin takes off in the car and heads for Texas, where the Big Bopper was buried. Armed with a thousand hits of Benzedrine, Gastin navigates a road trip that will cover many miles and states of mind between the coffeehouses of San Francisco's North Beach and the open plains of the Midwest. Along the way Gastin picks up some extraordinary hitchhikers -- the self-proclaimed world's greatest salesman, the Reverend Double-Gone Johnson, and a battered housewife with a box of old 45s. As the miles and sleepless hours roll by, Gastin's trip becomes a blur of fantasy and reality fueled by a soundtrack of classic rock 'n' roll.