The Ballad of Trash Can & Lady Sundance is a psychological family drama, complete at 53,000 words.

Max Loretta’s head is filled with static.

Photo by Aleksandr Kozlovskii via Unsplash

Once a cherished family man, Max’s is losing a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Now his brain is overrun by interference, similar to the static of the CB radio in his Oldsmobile 50 years ago, when he zipped through the hills of central Missouri under the CB handle “Trash Can.”

But his wife Karen, who followed Max through those rolling hills in her Ford Falcon using the CB handle “Lady Sundance,” knows her husband’s mind is slowly, cruelly shutting down. She embarks on an international journey to find a cure, encountering a brilliant young neuroscientist whose research could change the world; a conspiracy theorist who believes Alzheimer’s and the Mandela Effect could prove the existence of alternate universes; and a mysterious Central American doctor who claims he can re-create the effects of Alzheimer’s in Karen’s own mind, which could unlock the secrets of the disease … but only if she’s brave enough.

The Ballad of Trash Can & Lady Sundance spans five decades, and could be enjoyed by readers of Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, Blake Crouch’s Recursion, and Still Alice by Lisa Genova.