The Dog of the South — Charles Portis

Ray Midge's wife, Norma, has run away with her creep of a first husband. She also ran away with Midge's credit cards and his Ford Torino -- in place of which she left her lover's 1963 Buick Special, a compact car with 14,000 miles on it and a quarter-turn n the steering wheel.

But Midge can track the lovebirds' escape once the credit card receipts start rolling in, and he sets off after them to get his car back. The route: from Arkansas through Texas through Mexico to a remote, bedraggled plantation in. Honduras. Along the way, Midge meets Dr. Reo Symes, a down-on-his-luck old Texas M.D. with some hapless dreams and a broken-down bus called "The Dog of the South." The further south the journey takes them, the wilder their days get. And we're lucky to be along for the ride -- plunging headlong into the peculiar world of Charles Portis's (Central) America.