Traveler by Ron McLarty is all about character. McLarty, an actor, focuses on creating his protagonist Jono Riley, sometimes leaving out scenery and plot for character. Jono is a broke actor in New York who's pretty emotional and down in the dumps. He is in love with a firewoman, Renee Levesque, with whom he exchanges a lot of gag-inducing romantic scenes. The novel circles around a mysterious shooting that happened when Jono was a child in Rhode Island. His beautiful childhood love, Marie, was shot. After her death decades later, Jono goes back to Rhode Island to solve the old mystery. Jono Riley, at his best, is a funny guy whose habit of making fun of himself endears him to the reader. He recounts many of his horrible acting jobs in New York, like his role with the "Performing Monkees," where he portrays "the misunderstood nuclear reaction ... I won't describe my costume, except to say that Reynolds aluminum foil ain't just for freezing chicken. The salary was nonexistent, and the Performing Monkees' space on West 11th was not up to the sanitary standards of that other monkey ensemble in the Bronx Zoo."
Jono isn't a very consistent or self-aware character. He says he's not sentimental, but then he waxes poetically about boy scouts and the Fourth of July. The worst parts are when he describes his cheese-fest of a relationship with his girlfriend, when he "becomes the world's oldest teenager, contending with the exact same emotions and insecurities that turn younger, stronger kids into blithering idiots." But that's okay because "everything was perfect" in their relationship, and she forces him to tell her his life story. Even though he thinks Renee has "saved" him, he doesn't want to move in with her for some strange reason.
At least we get away from the lovefest when Jono goes to Rhode Island to pay his respects to Marie. But this plot is pretty ridiculous. Marie was shot as a little girl while she was walking with Jono. She was hurt badly, but McLarty tries to use the event as a moment that haunts Jono, which is never really believable. McLarty also uses every other chapter for awkward flashbacks that add little to the book. It's also very weird that Jono is so obsessed with the young girl he used to be in love with when he is suppose to be in love with Renee. McLarty didn't mean it, but you end up thinking Jono is a bit of an weirdo.
Jono's return home is the exact fantasy that you expect it to be. Just like you know the heroine will end up with the right guy at the end of a romantic comedy, you know that Jono will stand up to his past bullies and learn all the answers the secrets of his past. In the end, McLarty's Traveler is more of a fairy tale than a realist novel because life turns out to be perfect, even for middle-aged floundering New York actors. Traveler might make a very strong play, and at some points you can almost see the scenes on a stage, but it's weak as a novel.
