Margins
The Up-Down book cover
The Up-Down
2015
First Published
3.53
Average Rating
214
Number of Pages
A novel of violence, of love, and introspection, The Up-Down follows a man who leaves home and all that’s familiar, finds true love, loses it, and finds it again. Pace’s voyage is outward, among strangers, and inward into the fifth direction that is the up-down, in a sweeping, voracious human tale that takes no prisoners, witnesses extreme brutalities and expresses a childlike amazement. Here the route goes from New Orleans, to Chicago to Wyoming to Bay St. Clement, North Carolina, but the geography he is charting is always first and foremost unchartable.
Avg Rating
3.53
Number of Ratings
43
5 STARS
16%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
37%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Barry Gifford
Barry Gifford
Author · 45 books

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness. He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2026 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved