Book excerpt: Tom Hardy’s new novel, Slow Moving Dreams, tells the story of Tom Carter, a city man who is forced by the death of a cousin to return to his rural roots in West Texas. Hardy takes his readers along two journeys in this novel: the first is the physical journey that Tom takes as he drives to the funeral in Alpine, and the second is an exploration of Tom’s life as a child growing up in the country that the adult Tom is now passing through. But not all of those memories are happy ones, as Tom and his cousins soon find out. The funeral starts to unravel a dark secret that could change everything Tom thought he knew about his family. Hardy breathes life into all of his characters with his witty dialogue and nostalgic memory sequences. Slow Moving Dreams is a story of homecoming and family bonds that, in this age of consumerism and technology, is a refreshing change of pace. For those familiar with the lifestyle of the modern cowboy, the life Tom Carter remembers is a reminder of the old days, when nature provided everything one could ever need. But all readers, new to the cowboy’s world or not, are in for a fun, heart-warming tale as they follow Tom’s exploration of his past and realizations about his future.