High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The End of the Road is American writer John Barth`s second novel, first published in 1958 with a revised edition in 1967. Its first-person protagonist, Jacob Horner, suffers from nihilistic paralysis: an inability to choose a course of action. As part of a schedule of unorthodox therapies, Horner`s nameless Doctor has him take a teaching job at a local teachers college. There Horner befriends the super-rational existentialist Joe Morgan and his wife Rennie, with whom he becomes entangled in a love triangle, with tragic results. The book deals with several issues that were controversial at the time, including racial segregation and abortion.