Nobody's Pilgrims

This masterful novel with a thriller twist follows three runaway teenagers racing across the country in a stolen truck, chased by a drug cartel trying to get their hands on the deadly biological weapon hidden in the vehicle. Seventeen-year-old Turi escapes from his abusive family by reading. He hopes to actually escape by saving up from his work at a chicken farm in the frontera, near Ysleta, Texas. He believes the beautiful New England setting of his favorite book will be the perfect home for him. So, Turi sets off on the road with Arnulfo, an undocumented teenager he met at the farm, and Molly, a lonely girl looking to build a better life. The boys start their trip by hitching a ride with an elderly man, but they leave him behind and steal his truck when they begin to suspect he's in the middle of an illicit operation, and hiding a dangerous secret. Unfortunately for the three runaways, the secret is hidden in the truck and results in a drug cartel chasing them down, the release of a virus, and the total breakdown of society around them. With pensive, likable characters traveling and coming of age together, and a thriller twist that drives the narrative with intensity, Nobody's Pilgrim is a can't-put-down book with heart. The teenagers' journey builds on the classic bildungsroman The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but author Sergio Troncoso adds a gritty, frontera twist with the tension of No Country for Old Men. Sergio Troncoso was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. His previous works include A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, From this Wicked Patch of Dust, and The Last Tortilla. He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, immigrants, families and fatherhood, and crossing cultural, religious, and psychological borders. Among the numerous awards he has won are the International Latino Book Award for Best Collection of Short Stories, Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver and Bronze Awards for Multicultural Fiction from ForeWord Reviews. Troncoso has taught fiction and nonfiction at the Yale Writers' Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut for many years. He has served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category. His work has recently appeared in New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Texas Monthly, and New Guard Literary Review. The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso grew up on the east side of El Paso in rural Ysleta. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received two graduate degrees in international relations and philosophy from Yale University. A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Alumni Hall of Fame and the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL). He currently serves as TIL President.