Onward Toward What We’re Going Toward

Ryan Bartelmay graduated from the University of Iowa in 1998, where he was a member of the Undergraduate Writer's Workshop, and then went on to Columbia University to receive an MFA in fiction writing in 2005.
He lives in Chicago with his wife, daughter and two cats.

Set over the last half of the twentieth century, Onward Toward What We're Going Toward is the epic story of the decline and fall of an American family.

Postwar newlyweds Chic and Diane Waldbeeser are determined to carve out a life for themselves and their son, Lomax, in Middleville, Illinois. But when ten-year-old Loxax dies, Chic and Diane take refuge in religion, haiku poetry, doll collecting, food and bowling as they try to make sense of their overwhelming grief and guilt.

Meanwhile Chic's older brother, Buddy, struggles to make a life with his exotic, naïve wife Lijy - who is hiding a devastating secret of her own - while attempting to introduce the residents of Middleville to vegetarianism and Ayurveda. (An unusual endeavour in mid-century Middle America.)

Onward Toward What We're Going Toward is a bittersweet paean to failed lives and missed opportunities, and a deeply heartfelt and gloriously funny dissection of the American Dream.

A bittersweet paean to dashed hopes and good intentions in contemporary middle America; a comic, deeply heartfelt dissection of the Dream by an exciting debut author.

A bittersweet paean to dashed hopes and good intentions in contemporary middle America; a comic, deeply heartfelt dissection of the Dream by an exciting debut author.