Mark Cloud (the enormously appealing, literate, self-deprecating young hero310947) escapes Fred, Texas, to relish the anonymity of college in the final book of this widely adored fiction series about a restless preacher's kid in the 1970s. But the proverbial time of his life skips a beat when a series of catastrophes leads him back home and then on a soul-searching road trip through America's heartland where his deepest questions have surprising answers.