I liked your book review very much and the parallel to the failing American Dream... Nevertheless, I heeded the siren call to go West... I think I heard it in either a Led Zeppelin or Moody Blues album...
Oh yeah, I heeded the call somewhere around the late 60's early 70's, but it was associated with the call of the antiwar and social hallucinogenic counterculture which had left way before I even got there. Yet, I found some amazing people and a surreal but somehow practical wonders of life and an alternate society while traveling through that pathway. I eventually came to a revelation of the knowledge of Jesus - not the cultish kind, but the Biblical kind... At any rate, it was quite a trip. (I did not travel through the race for wealth, and fame, and prestige... Like the author, I had already found that pursuit empty and futile.. )