Driven: The White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back

Rather than render her road story with the usual perils and pleasures of travel, Stephenson builds her memoir around the automobiles that transported her through a life of wanderlust. The book opens with Stephenson embarking on a road trip in 2000 in her brother Matthew’s 1970s Ford truck after he committed suicide days earlier. From there she recalls her blue-collar childhood in the 1970s Midwest and her life as a single mother living in Montana; the different makes and models of her automobiles provide a solid touchstone for recounting time, place, and the economic and emotional circumstances of her life. Stephenson combs her memories of the various autos: the VW Squarebacks (“Volkswagens, like tattoos, build character”), a 1984 Saab (“The two years I owned her I... [was] so busy exercising my freedom that Matthew and I rarely saw each other”), and a 1988 Honda Civic (“In one short decade, we’d bootstrapped our way over the poverty line and into a facsimile of a middle-class lifestyle”). Stephenson insightfully maps her family history with tales of strife and love; her beloved brother’s mental illness and suicide; her marriage, motherhood, and divorce; and finally finding her voice as a writer. Stephenson’s memoir offers a rewarding twist on an American story, and is filled with love, grief, grit, and healing. (June)