Volkswagen Blues begins with its protagonist, a middle-aged, formerly successful writer from Quebec, who has adopted the ironic pen-name Jack Waterman (a metonymy playing on Waterman pens), experiencing a bout of writer's block. Having discovered an old postcard, Jack embarks on a quest to reconnect with its sender, his long-lost, rambling brother, Théo. Early into the narrative, Jack picks up a hitchhiker, a young Métisse woman, nicknamed "La Grande Sauterelle" due her long, grasshopper-like legs, as a travel companion, as well as a cat named Chop Suey.
Together in Jack's Volkswagen Minibus, which through personification becomes a character in the story, they travel from Gaspé to San Francisco, passing through Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and the American West along their way, exploring the history of European contact with the native people of the Americas. While on the road, they discuss language, literature, music, expansionism, the Oregon Trail, etc., and their trip becomes an allegory for the history of the French exploration of North America. At the same time, La Grande Sauterelle, who is struggling with her own identity, presents another version of American history, as recounted by indigenous peoples, where "discovery" is viewed as "invasion." Throughout the episodic novel a number of interesting and entertaining characters appear, including journalists, museum directors, railroad hoboes and writers such as Saul Bellow and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as the spirit of Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Hemingway, John Muir and the Beat Generation.
Jack's journey through an America that scholar Paul Socken describes as a "lost paradise" is one of disillusionment and self-discovery that allows him to break through the impasse he had met in his writing.
