M. Dylan Raskin (MDR to friends) is back with the most unexpected of books—an offbeat love song to his ailing mother—that reads like a punk-rock version of The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Of course, there's a twist. As always, young Mr. Raskin has a lot on his mind. His generation is still stocked to the gills with morons and "walking clichés," and MDR’s favorite things—blanket forts, fleece pants, cozy trees, and the month of October, to name just a few—are still in woefully short supply. But when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, MDR’s usual troubles are forced to the backseat. Together, mother and son hit the road in their little Honda del Sol and scour America for peace and quiet and the "October supplies" they need to keep going. Equal parts road story, elegy, and hallucinatory bildungsroman, Bandanas and October Supplies is a bittersweet love story that is like no other book ever written about death, life, and the complex devotion between a mother and a son.