Learning to Drive

by William Norwich

Overview

A member of New York City’s glitterati careens down memory lane in this debut novel by the gossip columnist and Vogue editor-at-large.
 
In 1980s New York City, Julian Orr has made himself into the ultimate insider—a journalist at a glossy fashion and gossip magazine and resident expert on contemporary urban living. But now, at the advanced age of thirty-seven, he’s about to embark on a totally new venture: learning to drive. His ultimate goal is to drive himself out of the city to visit his parents' graves and the small Connecticut town where he grew up.
 
But confronting his difficult childhood will be a breeze compared to the trials he faces at the hand of his not-quite-hinged driving instructor. What begins as an innocent act of personal liberation escalates soon escalates into a fiasco of front page proportions in this funny, poignant and personal debut novel.
 
The e-book edition published in 2019 includes a new preface by the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802148001
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/14/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	186
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

William Norwich is an author and journalist, as well as the commissioning editor for fashion and interior design at the Phaidon Press. He is well known for his decades of editing and writing for The New York Times and Vogue. Norwich is the author of several books, including Learning to Drive, My Mrs. Brown, Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century, and the children's book Molly and the Magic Dress. He is a graduate of the writing program at Columbia University and lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Writing from the point of view of a psychologically troubled narrator, journalist Norwich, editor at large for Vogue, saddles his debut novel with more problems than it can survive. Middle aged, gay Julian Orr, a disenchanted New York gossip columnist and aspiring writer who, like his creator, makes his living profiling the lives of the rich and trendy, is advised by his psychiatrist to get a driver's license so that he can visit his parents' graves in suburban Connecticut. Ensuing chapters alternate between Julian's memories of childhood in a seriously dysfunctional Jewish family and his disastrous experience en route to his driving test, in which he is abducted by a psychopathic Hispanic driving instructor and taken on what proves to be a deadly joyride. The flashbacks are much more loosely connected, chronicling the narrator's anguished coming-of-age and the deaths of both his parents before he reaches adulthood. Julian's abduction and the subsequent events eventually lead to a media frenzy: the situation between driver and passenger is meant to bring forth issues of class, race and sexual orientation, but Norwich overstates his material until not a drop of drama remains. In trying to convey Julian's "spacey, distracted'' personality, Norwich gives his protagonist an uninflected, almost dimwitted voice that, while intended to summon the reader's sympathy, may instead set teeth on edge. Trite prose, the boy Julian's inappropriate observations (he is portrayed as both hopelessly clueless and supremely observant) and a lack of a narrative center take the book over the edge from what is meant to be tight-lipped pathos to sheer and utter silliness. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In Vogue columnist Norwich's lead-footed debut, a tabloid- ready tale of fatal mayhem on the way to the Department of Motor Vehicles is punctuated with slightly more affecting flashbacks to the not-yet-licensed driver's sad childhood.

Julian Orr chronicles society parties for a New York daily and also works for a Vogue-like magazine called View. His therapist urges him to learn to drive so that he can go to Connecticut and visit his parents' graves. Julian enrolls in a driving school, but on the big morning of his road test, Hector, his instructor, calls to cancel. After a furious Julian threatens the manager of the school with a critical newspaper piece, Hector is ordered to show up. Bad idea. Hector arrives with his seven-year-old daughter in tow, and it's soon clear that he's on the verge of a breakdown. He insults Julian, punches him, and ultimately hits and kills an elderly woman. When the police stop the car, Hector starts shooting and is also killed. Julian saves Hector's daughter, whom he decides he wants to keep. In short order, Julian gets his license, doesn't get custody of the girl, and drives himself to the cemetery for his poignant graveside moment. This ghastly tale—told in a light satiric tone jarringly at odds with the tragic events described—is punctuated with vignettes from Julian's young life. We learn that toddler Julian slept in his kind father's bed while his mother slept in another room, that he was molested by a male counselor at the Enchanted Woods camp, and that he was orphaned during his adolescence. How does any of this relate to poor Hector? The connection between the two stories is as obscure as the relevance of the learning-to-drive metaphor.

An uneasy blend of satire and mourning, unleavened by either society dish or genuine insight.

Kirkus Reviews