A Road Trip to the End
"Everyone says first-person narratives are bullshit, that there's no suspense because you know that whoever's talking can't die by the end of the story, otherwise who's writing it? Well, by the time you read this I'll be dead, along with maybe a dozen others, so I guess the joke's on you.
That's called the narrative hook."
That's called the narrative hook."
— Mark Antonelli
Together We Will Go: A Novel is an Epistolary Novel by J. Michael Straczynski about a group of strangers who decide to go on one last road trip together before they end their lives. It explores the reasons why people decide to commit suicide, why they decide not to, the politics surrounding suicide, and the different stories behind why all of these people decide to get on the bus.
What starts out as a straightforward plan begins hitting roadblocks and taking detours (metaphorical and literal) with each new pickup (and drop-off) of passengers, with the group dynamic constantly shifting along with the mix of personalities, less-than-honest explanations, revelations about personal histories, and new possibilities. And all of that before the authorities find out about their little roadtrip.
Sometimes the only certain thing about any road trip is the end of the road. It's everything on the way that makes it worthwhile.
Together We Will Go contains the following tropes. Given the subject matter of this book, many are Death Tropes, including ones about Choosing Death:
- Berserk Button: Dylan is a very chill guy, but threaten a woman in his presence and he will not hesitate to beat the crap out of you.
- Big Brother Instinct: Dylan is fiercely protective of not only the girls on the bus, but even a stranger he sees in a hotel parking lot being threatened by her husband.
- Cool Old Guy: Vaughn, a well-dressed elderly man with a briefcase full of cash who doesn't hesitate to get in a fight to protect his fellow passengers.
- Covers Always Lie: Both the hardcover and paperback copies prominently feature Soldier the cat. Soldier doesn't actually get on the bus until relatively late in the story, and is the first character to leave the bus or die.
- The paperback edition depicts the bus with all of the human characters and Soldier driving off a cliff, which never happens in the book. When the bus goes off the cliff, only four of the humans are still aboard.
- Cute Kitten: Zeke's traveling companion, Soldier. Not a kitten, but very sick and on the verge of death.
- Dark Secret: There's a reason Vaughn is carting around all that cash. He murdered his wife and ran off with the life insurance payout
- Death Seeker: A bus full of them, plus the driver.
- Dramatic Irony: The police have no idea that one of the folks they are chasing is a murderer. They only care about the fact that they helped with Zeke's suicide.
- Dwindling Party: Not everyone makes it to the end of the road together: Only Soldier, Zeke, and Tyler die early. Shanelle decides to give life another shot after making friends on the bus, while Theresa, Jim, Mark, Karen, and Dylan all get kicked off for different reasons.
- Epistolary Novel: The book is told through a collection of journal entries, audio recordings, emails, and text messages to and from the characters on the bus. Only the Intro and Outro are not written by or to them.
- Everyone Can See It: Everyone figures out immediately after Dylan and Karen become a couple. Which is why the remaining passengers kick them off the bus, so they can have a chance at a life together.
- Foregone Conclusion: Averted Trope: The introduction leads the reader to assume everyone on the bus will die at the end of the story, but about half of them actually survive by getting off or getting kicked off the bus partway through the story, including Mark.
- Genki Girl: Lisa. It turns out to be due to her bipolar disorder, and it has caused her no shortage of problems in her life.
- Hate Sink: Theresa is not liked by anyone on the bus, makes no attempts to befriend anyone beyond her fiancé Jim, and tries to pressure Mark into kicking Lisa off the bus (resulting directly in her and Jim getting left behind the next morning.)
- Hidden Depths: As is typical for a JMS story, nobody is exactly as they appear at first. Even Theresa gets some sympathy once you hear her story. Some characters reveal their depths to each other in different ways, others provide revelation only to the reader, as nobody can read anyone else's journal entries unless given permission.
- How We Got Here: Going into the novel, the reader only knows that several people died, and the Utah Attorney General tried to stop the story from being distributed. We learn by the end of the book that the remaining passengers of the bus died in a high-speed chase with the Utah State Police.
- Hot-Blooded: Dylan and Vaughn. Vaughn is a little surprised to learn this about himself, having been suppressing his anger for many years.
- Hypocrite: Mark has no intention of killing himself, and is planning to exploit those he invited onto the bus because he isn't able to write a compelling story himself.
- Insufferable Genius: Peter. He freely acknowledges it and gets that he's hard to like, though.
- Jerkass: More than a few on the bus, to include Mark, Lisa, Peter, and Theresa. This gets Mark and Theresa both kicked off the bus, and it's assumed that Theresa subsequently called the cops on them out of spite.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Zeke, who is taking his sick cat Soldier for one last adventure together.
- Know When to Fold Them: Mark doesn't try to reclaim his bus once he gets kicked off, but instead decides to let the situation play out. It's not his story anymore.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: Both Karen and Lisa talk about this as an outlet for their stress. Lisa, due to her increased libido and decreased impulse control, engages in this on the bus but at least tries (and fails) to be discrete.
- Never My Fault: After his lies are discovered by the others, Mark avoids admitting his own responsibility for the situation even in his own journal.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The police's efforts to stop the group from committing suicide contribute to Peter's death, as he was having second thoughts near the end. The high-speed chase through Utah ends with the bus driving off of a convenient cliff before Peter had time to articulate his feelings.
- Public Service Announcement: The end of the book includes a message directly to the readers with information on how to contact the Suicide Prevention Hotline if they or someone they know is considering suicide.
- Rape as Backstory: Dylan, Hence his Berserk Button and Big Brother Instinct.
- Revealing Cover-Up: The Utah AG's official efforts to pull the story from the internet are implied to be the
only reason anyone was interested enough in it to have it published. - Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Lisa and Tyler get on the bus together. Lisa is a hyperactive redheaded Genki Girl and Tyler has a heart condition that leaves him both very lethargic and with a blue tint to his skin making this a more literal example than most.
- Mark is loud and acerbic, while Dylan is introspective and calm. Unless he sees a woman being threatened, at which point Dylan loses all control and Mark has to get him to chill out.
- Returning War Vet: Dylan, the driver. Mark notes that "D" has a very strong protective instinct where the women on the bus are involved, and thinks it has something to do with his time in the Army. It doesn't, and instead was a big part of why he enlisted.
- Road Trip Plot: A group of strangers get on a bus headed towards the figurative end of the road.
- Spanner in the Works: Theresa. Everyone thinks she is a "Death Tourist" who has no intentions of killing herself, because she came on the bus with her fiancé, Jim, who is secretly trying to convince her not to do it. When they get kicked off the bus, it is implied she called the cops on them to report Zeke's assisted suicide.
- Suicide by Cop: Tyler realizes he won't live long enough to get to the end of the road, and gets in a standoff with the police to create a distraction so the bus can escape.
- Title Drop: The title of the book comes from something Vaughn's wife used to say about how they'd likely grow old and die together.
- Trauma Button: Dylan witnessed his sister's rape when he was a child and reacts poorly to seeing women threatened.
- Wham Line: Vaughn drops the following bombshell in one of his journal entries:Just get to the point. Say the words. You can do it.
Okay. Here it is.
I killed my wife.
I killed Carolyn. - Worth Living For: Shanelle found a new love for life thanks ironically to the friends she made on the bus, and returns home to her mom. Peter comes tantalizingly close to this revelation himself but his own stubbornness keeps him from vocalizing it before the end. Mark has a history of suicidal ideations, but never intended for anyone to actually kill themselves on the trip.
