The American Don Quixote
A comic picaresque pilgrimage through contemporary America, wandering from libraries and parks to courtrooms.
Meet the Author
My vision for The American Don Quixote is rooted in a belief that curiosity is our greatest virtue. This work is an invitation to join a comic picaresque pilgrimage, rediscovering the hidden poetry in our everyday structures—from the quiet sanctity of libraries to the complex theater of our courtrooms. It is a celebration of harmless adventures and the enduring spirit of the Fourth Amendment.
With curiosity and harmless intent,
Picaresque Origins
The journey began in a gutted Ford Focus, where a modern knight-errant traded a lance for a camera and a tree stump for a driver's seat. His only crime was the audacity to roam across the Republic as a free man, a harmless pilgrimage through a world that sees ghosts in every shadow. Yet, where he saw poetry in the mundane, the fearful saw a specter of danger, transforming a simple wanderer into a subject of irrational surveillance.
The 4th Amendment & Courts
The true absurdity peaked when this wandering soul was shackled and jailed for the grave offense of remaining silent about his identity. Without a shred of reasonable suspicion or a crime in sight, the state demanded his name simply to satisfy its own idle curiosity. This clash reveals the tragicomedy of our legal system, where the noble armor of the Fourth Amendment is often pierced by the petty whims of those who fear the unknown.
Parks & Libraries
In these sanctuaries of thought, our protagonist sought only to document the quiet charm of the common square and the hallowed hush of the stacks. He committed no trespass, yet his silent observation was mistaken for a sinister plot by those who find peace suspicious. It is a strange kingdom indeed where a man is treated as a villain simply for admiring the scenery and refusing to play the part of the submissive subject.
Contemporary Pilgrimage
This collection serves as a chronicle of a contemporary quest, proving that one can be labeled a rogue without ever breaking a single law. It is a testament to the harmless adventure of filming the world as it is, even when the world insists on seeing a threat. Join this ironic pilgrimage through the heart of the landscape, where the only thing being hunted is the truth behind our crumbling illusions of liberty.
Art, Philosophy, and the Illustrated Tradition
The American Don Quixote was not conceived merely as a modern adaptation of Cervantes, but as a continuation of the artistic and philosophical tradition that has surrounded Don Quixote for more than four centuries.
That literary education was joined with a legal one under Governor Albert P. Brewer of Alabama, founder of the state's first Ethics Commission and longtime professor of legal ethics, who taught that the measure of a lawyer was Atticus Finch. His influence shaped the constitutional and moral questions that lie beneath the novel's humor.
The author's understanding of the novel began in Barcelona under Ángel Vilalta, lawyer and longtime School Year Abroad teacher, who led generations of students through the world of Gaudí, Picasso, Don Quixote, and the great painters and engravers who illustrated Cervantes' masterpiece. Those studies became the foundation for a lifelong interest in Spanish history, art, and the visual tradition of the illustrated Quixote.
The result is a work that unites literature, constitutional philosophy, classical Latin, and nineteenth-century engraving into a single visual and literary program. Its illustrations deliberately echo the great illustrated editions of Don Quixote, while its recurring Latin inscriptions and Augustinian themes invite readers to look beyond the surface narrative toward the deeper philosophical architecture beneath it. Far more than a travel memoir or legal chronicle, The American Don Quixote is an attempt to place a distinctly American story into one of the oldest and richest artistic traditions of the Western world.