Where All Your Attempts Cease
“The wagon doesn't care what you were back home. Out here, you become whoever the trail decides to make of you.”
Two thousand miles of river crossings and mountain passes — and encounters with the Cayuse, Shoshone, Umatilla, Pawnee, and Cheyenne — stand between St. Louis and the Willamette Valley. The trail doesn't care who you were back home — it only asks what you're willing to become. Where All Your Attempts Cease follows the wagons west in the spring of 1844, tracing what it costs to shed an old life and build a new one from nothing, what it takes to endure the unendurable, and how love survives when everything else is uncertain.
It's familiar territory for Robert McDiarmid, who writes about the distance between who we are and who we are willing to become — and the people, places, and hardships that close that gap. He is the author of “The House of Wolves,” “Milton and the Morning Monk,” “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Getting Over Yourself,” and two collections of micro-fiction, “Brief Moments” and “Esoteric Minutiae.” He resides in Palo Alto, CA with his husband David, and their rescue pup Orca.
The Collection
Six books tracing the distance between who we are and who we're becoming — available now in paperback and Kindle editions.
Where All Your Attempts Cease
A wagon train leaves St. Louis for the Willamette Valley in the spring of 1844 — two thousand miles of river crossings, mountain passes, and encounters that ask everything of the people who make the journey. A novel about what it costs to shed an old life, what it takes to endure the unendurable, and how love survives when everything else is uncertain.
The House of Wolves
Roy Wallace falls for David Moreau and is drawn into the House of Wolves, an intentional community of gay men bound by honor, spirituality, and brotherhood in the Pacific Northwest. After the loss of the household's founder, the men must rediscover the faith that first brought them together.
The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Getting Over Yourself
Getting dumped stings. Bill is swept off on a reluctant desert getaway by his roommate Barnum, where a poolside conversation with Arthur convinces him he isn't done with love after all. A short, funny novella about heartbreak and second chances.
Robert McDiarmid
Robert McDiarmid writes about the distance between who we are and who we're becoming — and the people, places, and hardships that close that gap. He is the author of “The House of Wolves,” “Milton and the Morning Monk,” and “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Getting Over Yourself,” novels that chart the romantic queer experience in America, as well as two collections of micro-fiction, “Brief Moments” and “Esoteric Minutiae.”
His new novel, Where All Your Attempts Cease, follows an 1840s wagon train from St. Louis to Portland, trading the safety of city life for open plains. It returns to the questions that have always driven his work — what it costs to transform yourself, what it takes to endure the unendurable, how love survives when everything else is uncertain.
Robert resides in Palo Alto, California, with his husband David and their rescue pup Orca.
Royalties & Proceeds Go to Charity
Royalties and proceeds are donated to charity. The 2026 beneficiary is OpenHouse SF, which creates opportunities with — not just for — LGBTQ+ seniors to build and reconnect with community in an intergenerational, age-affirming space.