Nathan Townsend is hiking the Appalachian Trail. Unlike the other through-hikers who attempt to walk the entire 2,100-mile long footpath, however, Nate isn't traveling for adventure or challenge – he's walking to escape. With each mile on the trail, he steps further and further away from the people and events that have irreparably scarred him. As he crosses paths with a barrage of fellow hikers and townspeople, each character carrying their own wounds, he must come to grips step-by-step with the events that put him on the long trail from Maine to Georgia. Eventually, Nate must make a dramatic choice between walking away from others and walking toward others – and must decide where his trail's end will be. Written with allusions to The Canterbury Tales and other classics, Appalachian Trail is a piece of literary fiction set among America's backbone, its most beautiful and most primitive footpath. Populated with unique and widely varied characters, it's a story of coping with unimaginable pain and finding redemption in both nature and people. The impetus for Nate's flight to the woods is slowly revealed through flashbacks in each chapter, and the ultimate shocking cause isn't fully revealed until its climax, resulting in a riveting page-turning story. As Nate begins his pilgrimage from his home in Maine, he flashes back to his family's departure from his birthplace in the remote hills of Eastern Tennessee when he was just eight. Once arriving at the trail's beginning, he almost perishes in the cold due to his distraction and poor planning. As he travels through the mountains of New England, he meets the best and worst of humanity – and the one young woman, nicknamed Teapot – who will eventually save him.
