Following his painful divorce, Gus Steadman embarks on a cross-country road trip that ultimately lands him in his hometown after a dozen years of self-imposed exile. A perpetual dilettante infected with a near-debilitating nostalgia for his fading youth, 30-year-old Gus is finally ready to get his life in gear and live in the moment when he discovers that his prep school pal is running for mayor against a twenty-year incumbent and former civil rights activist. Hoping to kick-start his life he joins the campaign only to find himself falling deeper and deeper into the absurd, underhanded world of urban politics. In the end, and after all sorts of unexpected doors have opened along the way, it's up to him to choose where his loyalties lie and his principles stand.
The Best of Intentions is the timeless story of the soul searcher striving to reconcile past with present, theory with practice, idealism with pragmatism. It interrogates the promises of opportunity and unmasks the perils of upward mobility; pits our undying hunger for spiritual connectedness against our insatiable thirst for worldly validation. Most of all, it explores the individual's fight to live of integrity in a confusing world devoid of easy answers.
Dax-Devlon Ross is the author of Beat of a Different Drum. He is also the co-author of a collection of essays entitled A Staircase of Words and a memoir entitled The Underdog's Manifesto. He is also a founding publisher of Outside the Box Publishing. Mr. Ross is a graduate of George Washington University Law School and a former New York City teacher. He lives in Jersey City.