In 2001, David LeBrun travelled to Costa Rica to reconnect with an old friend. LeBrun, a young writer at the end of a string of dead-end jobs, planned on living cheaply for a winter while finishing the book he thought would make his career. (And, of course, drinking every night and getting stoned every day. And maybe stealing the occasional pill.) But once there, he was swept up in his friend’s self-destruction and ran out of money far sooner than expected.

What followed was an epic odyssey across Central America and Mexico, hitchhiking with random strangers and sleeping anywhere he could as his mental health deteriorated and he tried to finish his book; along the way, he met down-and-out street buskers, a narcissistic thief, a Bible-thumper with multiple personalities, ex-convicts in a Narcotics Anonymous shelter—but, more importantly, himself.

Delirium Vitae is a new classic, an On the Road for the twenty-first century. Alternately charming and harrowing, it looks beneath the romance of adventure in a foreign land to see what it’s really like to teeter between freedom and homelessness. (Because, let’s be honest, walking thirty-six kilometers on an empty stomach, or fending off a sweaty and shirtless truck driver, does suck.) It’s a fantastic book that looks not only at the excitement of the open road, but at why we go there, and what we leave behind—and whether we can ever still come home.

David LeBrun's profile page

David LeBrun is a multi-lingual French-Canadian author. With a gritty and minimalist style, his writing draws from his travels and offbeat perspectives. His short stories have appeared in Blank Spaces Magazine and Caesura. Delirium Vitae is his first of three memoirs. He lives in Montréal, Québec, where he plays hockey, consults on screenplays, and works as a technician in the art department of the film industry.

"LeBrun writes with the peculiar velocity of Denis Johnson. This is a book rich with wild language and a big-hearted journey into human confusion."
— Joshua Mohr, author of Model Citizen

"…a wayward, knife-edge adventure told in expressive detail... evocative of a real-life Alice in Wonderland."
— Frankie Martinez, Independent Book Review

"LeBrun is a fresh and appealing new voice. Delirium Vitae reads like a novel."
— Diane Young, author of See No Evil

“‘What’s hard about holding on to a job? Try holding on to a dream,’ writes David LeBrun in Delirium Vitae. LeBrun held on to his dream—setting off on the adventure that would transform and define him—and now he’s got a gritty, rollicking, and heart-breaking memoir to show for it. I put it on the shelf with Bukowski, Fante, and Kerouac.”
— John Julius Reel, author of My Half Orange