The Sky Manifest is a novel of the kind often called “picaresque” because it deals with a wandering, rogue-like figure. The protagonist, Nathan Soderquist, isn’t a bad man, but he is a tough guy who ends up running from the law for tending to think with his fists and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After the death of his wife and small daughter (a tragedy he a bit unfairly blames himself for), Nathan strikes out with no particular destination in mind, just a desire to move on, crossing the continent from east to west by car, bike, and foot. He keeps a sporadic journal containing descriptions of the sky, which reveal a poetic sensibility and surprisingly rich vocabulary.

As with most road novels, the structure is episodic. These episodes usually feature encounters with small-town or backwoods weirdos, and often involve acts of violence. When author Brian Panhuyzen gets into action mode he’s very good, demonstrating a flair for capturing bone-jarring confrontations and the subjective experience of bodies pushed to their limits. Nathan’s trip starts to seem like a survivalist road race as he endures thirst, sleep deprivation, food poisoning, withdrawal, and serious physical injury. But through it all, he just keeps going.

If our hero were merely an instinctual brute tormented by human feeling, the book would be a thrilling success. Nathan, however, is weighed down with a clichéd backstory that strains to make him into a familiar figure in Canadian fiction: the hyper-masculine but emotionally wounded hero who has to be redeemed through love. There are times when Panhuyzen plays up this angle to such a degree that he seems to be aiming at satire. The dialogue is made to carry too much of the narrative, and the novel’s moral framework slips gears in the denouement from convention into improbability.

It’s a testament to how strong the rest of the book is that these problems are overcome. Panhuyzen has a great sense of pace to go with his feel for bodies in motion, and some of the oddballs Nathan encounters, particularly the villains, are wonderfully imagined. The parts don’t always come together, but there is a great deal to enjoy along the way.