Driving with dead people

The narrator of driving with dead people is not necessarily the most eloquent of speakers, but her voice is incredibly story and the way that she weaves a story trumps the obvious defects in formal writing ability. The memoir read like a beach read-and I do not mean this in an insulting way-only that it flowed well and was not too complicated. Holloway does not want us to have to guess at anything, nor does she want us to have to work to hard. I take this to mean that this is an inclusive memoir; accessibility is important. For the outcast, the deviant, the formalist, all are welcome into the story.

Somewhere in the middle of the book, I started to feel badly for Monica’s father. I found myself opening up to a possibility of a relationship with him just as Monica was. She succeeds in making me care about her father, and in humanizing him, making it all the more painful when it is revealed exactly what kind of a monster he was and is.

The voice in this memoir seems childish throughout. Even in the later sections when Monica is an adult, it seems like the voice is rooted in childhood. But not rooted, perhaps trapped. As if telling this story is so painful that the child can never be divorced from the adult. She also uses the same sort of short, declarative statements that the other authors used. These are very effective and serve to bring the reader into the adult mind. It is the reasoning of a grown woman watching her childhood crumble. She says things like, “I hated all of us” and in some sections, it is that mature awareness that something is wrong that is ominous, terrifying.

“He refused to hit the brakes as we accelerated around corners so steep that when I looked out my glassless window, I was peering straight down into an abyss. The steeper the road, the faster we went. I stopped laughing.” The reality of this scene is far more horrible than any metaphor, any embellishment. All that Holloway needs to do is simply tell the story as it happened. The moment is the metaphor. This fact, that the most terrible things to happen actually do, are stated very effectively and are what gives this memoir its darkness.

I appreciated the inherent humor in Holloway’s voice because unlike many other authors I have read recently, she is able to maintain a sense of self, voice, and above all, humor. That refusal to become mired in the pain of her childhood was a relief to read. This is not merely a personal preference; it also balanced out the horrors of her childhood. I love the way that Holloway used dark humor to craft her voice. I appreciate humor, and though I didn’t at first, and might not admit it out loud, I find it much more enjoyable to read a book that is engaging and human than one that is serious, well crafted, and stuck in grief.