For The Road is an Acid Western novella, written by Stark Holborn and published by PS Publishing. A difficult to classify piece, enigmatic during most of its length, that Holborn uses as a way to explore concepts such as journey and being stuck while playing with an unreliable first person narrative, putting at many points the interrogation on where is the line between what's real and just in the mind of our character, all enveloped in a poignant prose.

Jesse Bartos is on the run, remembers being shot; walking through the desert until he finds a desolate station with the rails covered in dust and sand: Dawn's Holt. The family that runs it, tends Jesse's wounds while he recovers; the train will come eventually, he's told. But as the days pass, Jesse starts to find the family strange, and wonders if the train will pass and he will escape; however, as he spends more time with the family, they start invading his thoughts, even Reo, the enigmatic son.

We can sense how the mystery is enclosed around the strange family running Dawn's Holt: a straightforward father called Lug, his wife Rosmerta, a daughter called Navia, and a really strange son that rarely appears until the night, Reo. Jesse can feel that there are secrets about this place that he's not being told, but also the discovery process lands into a more complex story, one that not only is fueled by rich imagery, but that delves into a powerful figure such as the lovers, making of this experience an authentic trip for the reader.

For being such a short piece, Holborn is not afraid to develop this small cosmos around Dawn's Holt, a sort of western setting that also includes anachronic details as the biker band; but as we advance, the line that marks what is real gets blurred, gifting us with a rich imagery that eventually leads to a conclusion that can be open to the reader's interpretation. The prose lands a bit on the lyrical side, suiting well with the rest of the piece.

For The Road is a brilliant novella, an experience that almost any reader should have; I strongly recommend also read the afterword and acknowledgements, as Holborn gives us more context on the song that was the inspiration for this piece. Simply excellent.