Voluntary Madness

Beautiful, sexy Juliette is madly in love with Punch. She’ll do absolutely anything for him. She also loves getting buck-naked on dark Key West byways and flashing strangers by moonlight. Punch loves Juliette … sort of. He loves even more the booze he drinks like a fish, Juliette’s inherited money on which he’s happy to live, the image of himself as a wannabe writer, and the idea of flaming out in a joint suicide when his novel is done and the money runs out. Together Juliette and Punch have come to Key West in a desperate quest for something vital, something eloquent in their lives—some antidote to their hollow loneliness. Voluntary Madness is a crazed, unputdownable motorcycle ride to either perdition or salvation, that has become a noir classic in its own time.

Vicki Hendricks is the author of six genre-shattering novels, including the Edgar Award finalist Cruel Poetry, and a collection of gothic stories. She teaches writing at Broward College in south Florida.