Book excerpt: All my life, people have been telling me the meaning of life… Ben Carter, drifter in dreamland, has a broken heart and a wandering mind. His memories are in fragments, played back and forth, like a CD of life’s greatest hits. Devoutly Catholic and reserved philosophy student Ben's conservative sensibilities and romantic inexperience were challenged by intense, eccentric Professor Wilkinson and gothic, beguiling Winona. Winona's European departure and Wilkinson's suicide sent Ben spiraling into depression and doubt. With Winona's return, Ben makes his way across America, finding advice along the way. From the veteran's war philosophy to the hitchhiker's road wisdom to the Kenyan priest's story of redemption, he seeks the meaning of life on the way back to the woman he loves. Spiritual, pensive, and human, A Heart Condemned to Roam is a journey into the heart of America, the way of love, and inscrutable nature of life itself.