THE SPARK AND THE DRIVE A NOVEL WAYNE HARRISON (Courtesy copy of www.stmartinspress)
I can't even imagine how difficult it is to lose a child. I only have heard or read the experiences of other people in my life or characters in books. Nick and Mary Ann grieve in different ways. Perhaps, men and women always grieve differently. I don't know. Anyway, their grief separates them one from another. Their marriage is now on dangerous ground. It's very easy to know Mary Ann has suffered a loss. She can cry with just one touch on the arm or seeing a park scene can make her feel all tender inside. Anything can send her back to that awful day in her past.
While Nick seems not to care at all. He goes on working hard on his cars in the shop. Talking with the guys. With all of his conversations, he never talks about that day when his world began to fall apart. There is one way you might know Nick is suffering a loss. It is by watching his general work habits. How well is he doing his repair work? Nick makes mistakes while fixing cars. Many cars are brought back by their owners. These are do overs. One day he left a screwdriver embedded inside a car. At another time, a man is injured in the shop. Nick's decision about what hospital should tend the customer are questioned. The reason or reasons lead back to the fateful day of loss. I began to think if only Nick could share his pain with someone. However, that's not easy for all of us.
So the basic lesson is repeated in a creative way by the author, Wayne Harrison. Each person grieves in their personal way. It is wrong to judge a person by how many tears they cry or don't cry. The saddest person might be like Nick, very quiet and not talking about the horrible experience. Coping mechanisms are just different. I've always heard it said, the saddest person in the world is the clown.
It was a heavy lesson for me to learn that the grief of the main family members can lead other people to make bad, bad mistakes. Justin is nineteen years old. He works as a mechanic at Nick's shop while Mary Ann works out front helping the customers voice their car problems, etc. Somehow Nick becomes deeply involved in the problems of Nick and Mary Ann. Mary Ann is very vulnerable. She can't talk to Nick. Her family lives in Oregon. She lives in Westbury, Connecticut. She's stuck with a silence that is too much to bear.
Nick and Mary Ann's typhoon will pick up other people and hurt them or not hurt them. The friends who get involved become like the houses and trucks picked up in a dangerous storm. Just as quickly as they are picked up, some of those same people will be dropped. Throughout the novel, The Spark And The Drive, it is fascinating to see who is really helping the couple, who isn't helping the couple and how Mary Ann and Nick are hurting themselves by not getting help or at least, talking to someone. Mary Ann's family isn't met until almost the end of the novel.
Now I know how important my reaction is during another person's period of pain. I can make their problem. It is also possible to become a blessing to them. One day Mary Ann turns to Justin and says, "you're nineteen." Was that Justin's problem, his age? Was it not his age? Was it something other than his age? After all, he had his struggles at home. His father chooses a new lifestyle and leaves the family. His mother is drinking heavily, and his little sister is too little to really understand what's happening in her world.
The novel is psychologically masterful in its presentation. I'm so glad to have gone pass the title and book cover. The places where cars are written about were easy for me to just wonder over and go on with the meat of the novel.
At the top of the cover of the novel, Richard Russo, another wonderful author, writes "There's nothing I enjoy more than entering a fictional world over which an author demonstrates complete mastery. That's exactly what Wayne Harrison offers his lucky readers in The Spark and the Drive."http://fictionwritersreview.com/review/the-spark-and-the-drive-by-wayne-harrison/
Comments
Joy!
Kathy