In 1987, a massive snowstorm hits New York as Peter Kaldheim flees the city, owing drug debts to a dealer who is no stranger to casual violence.
Leaving behind his chaotic past, Kaldheim hits the road, living hand-to-mouth in flophouses, panhandling with his fellow itinerants. As he makes his way across America in search of a new life, the harsh reality of living hand-to-mouth forces him to face up to his past, from his time in Riker’s prison, to relationships lost and lamented.
Kaldheim hikes and buses through an America rarely seen, and his encounters with a disparate collection of characters instils in him a new empathy and wisdom, as he journeys on a road less travelled.
"Idiot Wind is an utterly compelling memoir - the story of a life squandered and ultimately reclaimed. For all his self-confessed debauchery, Kaldheim is an acute observer and a great storyteller: the chapters on his nights as a homeless coke dealer in downtown Manhattan in the eighties are harrowing and hilarious. And his descriptions of his subsequent hobo peregrinations are rich in gritty det
JAY MCINERNEY
"Idiot Wind gives the definitive, harrowing, and often grimly hilarious answer to the question of what happens to a person when he "drops off the map", his old life no longer viable and his new life nowhere in sight"
