Journey to Purity

Rochelle Owens takes us back to the 1970s in this ingenious and provocative novel written in the 70s about the journeys of a collection of intriguing and uniquely compelling characters towards personal satisfaction and fulfillment. On their quests for self-definition, each of them cannot escape a rich and unbridled inner life that impinges upon, at times, impedes, their getting to the desired destination, further complicated by the grips they imagine they want to and often succeed in putting on each other. Moved by brilliantly original modes of narration through their world's town and country, with stunning descents into their mythic and psychic undergrounds, Elly, Martina, and the unforgettable Chucky Craydon, the would-be American artist who has imprisoned himself in an upstate New York exilic condition out of which his compulsive and outrageous letter-writing is his only release, and all the rest of their company remind us with a nostalgic vengeance of a time gone by, though hardly over and done with.

The Obie Award winning play by Rochelle Owens, "Chucky's Hunch," Theater for the New City (1981), was adapted by its author from this novel. The play was originally published in Wordplays 2, PAJ Publications (1982) and in Plays by Rochelle Owens, Broadway Play Publishing (2000).