Adventures in Nowhere

Before Disney and far from the palm-lined Florida beaches, ten-year-old Danny Ryan is transplanted to a tiny community on the hyacinth-choked Hillsborough River outside Tampa, a place his older sister calls Nowhere. But for Danny and his best friend, the irrepressible Alfred Bagley, whose fondest desire is to grow up to be a junk dealer, Nowhere is where adventures lurk and lure them into more trouble than they can handle. More trouble is not what Danny needs as he copes with a family that includes a father sinking into schizophrenia; two sisters, one very ill and the other ready to run away with a shady boyfriend; and a mother trying her best to hold it all together. Yet Danny keeps his good humor, seeking escape on the nearby Hillsborough River or in the little community of Sulphur Springs.

But Danny's adventures take a fateful turn when he begins seeing a mysteriously changing house across the hyacinth-choked Hillsborough. Is he going crazy like his father? With the help of a small band of quirky but faithful allies, Danny searches for and finds himself.

Adventures in Nowhere paints a compelling, imaginative, and often humorous vision of a time, a place, and a way of growing up, allowing a reader to live for a while in the mind of a remarkably thoughtful and intense boy caught at the final edge of childhood.

John Ames entered the University of Florida intending to major in drama. After a season of summer stock, he decided he wasn’t the dramatic type and changed his major to English, becoming a Ford Fellow and eventually graduating with a master’s degree. After graduation, he built a rustic house and lived for several years on the edge of a spiritual community located near Gainesville, Florida. John’s search for enlightenment ended when he decided that he was too far from a movie theater. He moved inside the Gainesville city limits and taught English and film for thirty years at Santa Fe College. He has produced and acted in numerous short films and videos, including the cable TV series Tub Interviews, wherein all of the interviewees were required to be in a bathtub. For ten years he reviewed movies for PBS radio station WUFT. He has appeared as a standup comedian and has designed and marketed Florida-themed lamps. In addition to writing Adventures in Nowhere, he coauthored Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story and its sequel, No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life, as well as Speaking of Florida.