Doctors tell us that laughter improves our health. Now and then, I go in search of laughter in my favorite medium, between the covers of a good book. Thank you to Net Galley and Doubleday Publishers for this DRC. Not only is The Grand Tour achingly funny, it’s also strong fiction. It is available to the public August 9, 2016, and you ought to read it.

Our story centers around two protagonists in equal measure. Richard Lazar is an author who has written one lukewarm release after another, drunken, cynical, and utterly thoughtless of anyone other than himself. He’s lost his family and his health can’t be far behind, a “smoking Yugo of a body” constantly drenched in alcoholic beverages. Suddenly and unexpectedly, his most recent novel has become a blockbuster. A tender, idealistic young man, a fan club of one named Vance, our second protagonist, quits his job at the Pizza Boy, desperate to get away from home and spend time with the writer he idolizes. He becomes Richard’s roadie, dragging him out of one bar after another, conveying him across the western USA to speaking engagements and book-signings.

His Portland book signing takes him to a fictitious bookstore, a thinly disguised version of Powell’s City of Books, one of my favorite places. Richard manages to disgrace himself there, and it won’t be the last time he does so.

The journey through Las Vegas is the most resonant and brilliantly described I have yet seen in literature; each your heart out, Hunter Thompson.

Often literature billed as dark humor turns out to be merely dark, and I was delighted to discover otherwise here. I laughed out loud in a number of places. At the same time, the author does a tidy job of developing both main characters in much greater depth than I had anticipated. Hoping for a romp, albeit a grim one, I wound up holding my sides at the same time I absorbed a fine novel. It is excellent surprises such as this one that keep me reading galleys by new writers. This one is smart and wickedly clever. Of particular satisfaction was the denouement involving Vance’s character.

All told, it’s a savagely funny read. It comes out today, and you should get it and read it.