In the days when you could, I made a Faustian pact. As the years pass, I may have blown my end and the Accounts Payable date is looming. But what if the magic had actually happened and I pursued it fully? The answer lies with Key to the Highway, a wild, musical hero’s journey through the Australian Outback to Perth, India, Bangkok, Borneo, and Rio. Discovery of a mysterious blues harp/harmonica by a bayside creek, outside Melbourne, takes the main character, Chris Hunter, on a mystical journey to self-discovery, in which his reality morphs with mythological gods, heroes and villains, manifested as bikers, prophets, gun runners, shady businessmen, neo-Nazis and miners. The quest is disrupted when Chris abandons his Orphic gift, as a cynical journalist and is spirited back to the bland suburbia he tried to evade. Redemption comes when he pursues Canberra’s suppressed esoteric secret in a fight against the Alt Right. We can discuss parallels with epic heroes including Odysseus, King Arthur, and Rama or their modern equivalents in Mad Max, Star Wars and The Matrix.
Key to the Highway—with Richard Andrews