Grover “Cleve” Cleveland is stuck in the small town of Wenatchee, WA. As a schoolteacher he wants to educate not just his students but everyone around him about the evils of the world, most importantly the mega-corpo-glomerates that are destroying the environment. When he gets fired for showing the kids graphic films depicting slaughterhouse techniques, Cleve takes a chance and runs for his life.

Henry “Mort” Lamorte is a larger than life aging hippy/philosopher running a somewhat shady, but always entertaining traveling carnival. He collects his workers from the fast food joints that dot the interstates, and collects money by running a gambling tent behind the tilt-o-whirl. Cleve isn’t his typical recruit, but Mort has something less than typical in mind for him. Mort makes trouble wherever he goes, but he always gets out clean. Well, almost always.

Natalie Lucas is also stuck in Wenatchee and would like nothing more than to escape her fundamentalist parents and make it big in Nashville. When Mort makes the offer, she’s more than eager to climb aboard and see what comes. The world is more dangerous than she expected, but more beautiful as well.

Roadkill Rhapsody chronicles the story of Cleve and Natalie running away with Mort’s carnival. Life is harder than either expects it to be, and Mort, the classic trickster, forces everyone to let go of their expectations, embrace chaos, and take the chances that will inspire and delight them. Cleve learns to let go of his dogmatic idealism and Natalie learns to follow her dreams. In the end it is Mort who learns the biggest lesson of all, as the ferris wheel of life makes its final revolution.

With a little bit of magic, a lot of laughs and an adventure through the Pacific Northwest, Roadkill Rhapsody reminds all of us that the most serious lesson of all is to take life a little less seriously.