Set in early 1960s Texas, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, this fictional tale explores timeless dark themes in a lighthearted manner.
A young man attending a military academy finds himself caught up in a scandal with the superintendent's wife. He is quietly permitted to graduate early without ceremony. Finding himself with spare months before he planned to join the Army, before he would be subject to the draft, he travels first to Las Vegas to reconnect with his grandmother, and then to New Orleans in an attempt to meet with his mother, they being long estranged. On his travels by bus and train, and through encounters with his grandmother, her new husband, and various new acquaintances, the young man is forced to confront his circumstances, his abilities, and limitations, and the original cause of his estrangement with his mother. Growing self-reflection causes the young man to ponder the nature of serendipity, the sharing of culpability, and the realization that emotional trauma can be both multi-generational and a two-way street.
Kevin's Progress is a sequel to Driver's Ed A Texas Tale, also by Karl Kendall.
