All in All

About the Book

All in All is a literary journey from New York City to western Pennsylvania.  Felicity Stevens (yes, he is a male with that name) and his new-to-America girlfriend from France, Sara, decide that the mundane routine of their juvenile reform school should be livened up.  Felicity decides to show Sara the sights of Boston, but, upon the misguidance from a homeless man, they hop the wrong train and end up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Their money is short, Felicity has no idea where to go or what to do, and they both have bloodstains on their torsos due to an act of symbolism and passion.  They spend the first morning alone by the rivers, the afternoon in a cheap room where they are robbed and have their funds cut in half, and the evening in a local hangout for college students near the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.

It is here where they meet the man who will forever alter their lives.  His name is Deltiod Jones, a homosexual poet who inherited a house and land from his grandmother in Plainton, Pennsylvania.  The trio hits it off and Deltiod invited Felicity and Sara to his house for a few days until they can get back to New York.

Felicity learns of Deltoid’s roommate, Seth, a modern day slacker with values as deep as his beer mug and his live-in girlfriend Hollie.

Throughout the novel the reader witnesses Sara’s decline in health, she starts with little coughs and cold skin, but gradually it becomes worse.  After a tour of the small town and a visit to the local mall to buy Vitamin C and new clothes, the group decides to take in a local football game.  Sara is too worn out and sick to go and opts to stay in and rest.

At the football game Felicity and Seth manage to start a crowd-clearing brawl and escape the even unharmed.  The group of Seth, Deltoid, Hollie, and Felicity decide to return to the house to tell Sara all the news.  When they get back and realize what happened, everything changes.  Nothing is ever the same again.

The story is a literary story that looks at the importance of friends, love, and relationships in a hectic world where an individual can often times feel so small and insignificant.  The players in this novel are constantly battling different obstacles from a broken pi-ball game and a conversation about Socrates, to internal lust and life altering events.  In the end, however, they are all awakened to the important things in life.  The moments where you can look back and say, “Those were the best days of my life.”

About the Author

Robert Rider, Jr. was born in Grove City, Pennsylvania in 1977. He lives in western Pennsylvania in a house with his dog Lucy. He makes a living by shooting holes in the moon with a water pistol and spends his spare time developing his theory of white vs. rainbow shoestrings on human behavior.