Pellegrini's novel, called WALK THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW, is set in Monterey, California.
Fresh out of the army in 1974, Mark Roosevelt is bored and disgusted with life. He can't find anyone to form a band with, his most recent girlfriend won't even talk to him, and he just got ripped off.
Desperate and lonely, Mark decides to hitch down to California to look up an old flame, Gail Loughlin.
A blonde and beautiful socialite, the daughter of a Deputy Prosecutor in San Francisco, Gail has renounced her family and is now working at a bar down in Monterey while selling drugs on the side.
Meeting again, they renew their romance and Mark agrees to help Gail with her drug business. The book follows the growth of this business, and the rise and fall of their relationship, which is strongly affected by alcoholism and drug abuse.
The book operates on many levels. On one hand, it's the insightful story of a dysfunctional relationship. On another level, it's also a broad, episodic crime drama told from the perspective of the criminals.
WALK THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW runs about 142,000 words.
Michael Pellegrini also writes short stories.
In a short story calledThe Beginning, a man and a woman are thrust together by a stray chance and as a result, they finally resolve old differences that kept them apart - all which were caused by a simple misunderstanding.
The Kiss takes place in New Zealand, in the late sixties, and is about a teenage couple's awkward first kiss.
In Dream Until Your Dream Comes True, Marty Medina is on a date with one of the BlackTop dispatchers, Linda Mueller, when it's revealed that Marty once nearly made it big in the music business. At a rock concert on their second date, Marty confronts some old friends - with surprising results.
Works in Progress:
In RIVER OF THE SUN, an 18 year old kid attends a rock festival in 1970.
Expecting to just party and rock out, instead, Gordon Lawson ends up working at the Rio Del Sol rock festival. He meets a girl named Susan Peretti, a volunteer who works the festival radios there, and they fall in love.
Through the eleven days of the festival, Gordon is faced with many obstacles - all of which he overcomes. Because of this hard work and his ingenuity, Gordon is promoted to higher and more responsible positions on the staff, and eventually, is put in charge of parking, traffic control and security for the entire festival.
As the festival nears its end, everything falls apart - including his relationship with Susan - and Gordon is faced with the hardest obstacles of all.
The stakes are huge for Gordon: If he makes the right decisions, he might just win back his true love.
ACTS OF LOVE , is a contemporary black comedy set in a taxi company.
BlackTop Cab is a refuge for the unemployable. It's a dumping ground for the misbegotten, the fringe elements that can't find a job anywhere else.
Mack Campner and Marty Medina are drivers at the dilapidated taxi company. While drinking one morning after work, Mack and Marty and their friends all decide to help out their favorite dispatcher, Ed Carnahan, who just broke up with his girlfriend.
The boys' plan is very simple. The best way to help someone get over a woman, they figure, is to get him another woman. Using this logic, the drivers pool their money, deciding to buy Carnahan a beautiful hooker for the night.
The book follows the exploits of the drivers in their misguided quest to help their friend.
Pellegrini is presently looking for a literary agent to represent him.
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