Hitch-hiking, riding your thumb, is always a spin of the wheel, and these stories, from Jeffrey DeLotto’s first rides in high school to his last, from a border station on the Jordanian/Syrian frontier to Damascus, during the Iraq-Iran War, twist and wind in edgy detail from fear to laughter, disappointment to exhilaration, confusion to understanding, always along a solitary road filled with humanity.

The additional personal essays move from observing a fire ant bite to fishing for barracudas, being pushed into his first kiss, dropping acid, seeing a fluorescent sea on a moonless night sailing miles off the Florida coast, and others, somehow stitched together by a theme of being fortunate.