Come Round Right
By (Author) Alan Govenar
Deep Vellum Publishing
Deep Vellum Publishing
13th August 2025
United States
General
Fiction
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
Narrative theme: Coming of age
Narrative theme: Politics
813.54
Hardback
225
Width 152mm, Height 228mm
After undergoing a traumatic experience with his college girlfriend, college student Aaron must reckon with what it means to run away from everything-and what's worth returning to-during the political unease of the '70s.
Aaron is a college student seeking adventure in the hallucinatory, political haze of 1970s America. Haunted by horrifying memories of a hitchhiking experience, abandoned by his equally traumatized girlfriend, Aaron tries to flee from everything both physical and psychological. When he tries to find meaning on a solo hitchhiking trip, he must reckon with the real question of his journey: can he truly begin a new life in a new community, simple and free, or must he reckon with the person he once was, and the harm he was caused
Come Round Right is a paean to a pivotal moment in American history, when the Vietnam War was raging, and the idealism of the 1960s was losing ground to frustration, anger, and violence. Both a haunting novel and a personal reckoning with his own past experiences, Govenar's is a deeply personal story about the struggle to survive against all odds, never losing hope.
"Govenar turns the reader into a hitchhiker in this beautiful, often trippy, and intimate exploration of the search for meaning when innocence is lost. Amidst the complex backdrop of the 1970s, an eighteen-year-old pseudo-hippie sets out to find answers without knowing the questions. His search for love, identity, purity, restoration, and his voice in the overwhelming and infinite universe, takes the reader on a fast-paced journey across North America. It is raw and haunting and will stay with the reader long after the final page is read."Hannes Barnard, author of Halley's Comet
Alan Govenar is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, photographer, and filmmaker. He is director of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization he founded to advance essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than thirty books, including Boccaccio in the Berkshires (2021), Deep Ellum and Central Track (2023) and See That My Grave is Kept Clean (2023), all from Deep Vellum.