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Highway
Highway is author Donald O’Donovan’s third novel in which we find his quintessential hero, Jerzy Mulvaney, portrayed in early life as an over-the-road truck driver—a bedbug hauler, as the industry labels those who move furniture rather than commercial goods. But Mulvaney is anything but a typical road warrior; he is an aspiring author consorting with the underbelly of American society, a bohemian artist in search of stimulating experiences and colorful characters.
Typical of O’Donovan’s novels, not only the characters are colorful, but the situations in which they find themselves are equally vibrant. And then there is Jerzy Mulvaney himself, rough on the outside but thoughtful and sensitive on the inside. As he navigates his course from coast to coast over eighteen wheels, he is introspective and provocative. The miles grind away underneath the rubber, but the real story is inside Jerzy’s mind as he searches for balance and expression.
Highway is the road trip you always imagined but never took; mile after mile is marked with candid observations, outlandish circumstances and insights that define the American experience.
Typical of O’Donovan’s novels, not only the characters are colorful, but the situations in which they find themselves are equally vibrant. And then there is Jerzy Mulvaney himself, rough on the outside but thoughtful and sensitive on the inside. As he navigates his course from coast to coast over eighteen wheels, he is introspective and provocative. The miles grind away underneath the rubber, but the real story is inside Jerzy’s mind as he searches for balance and expression.
Highway is the road trip you always imagined but never took; mile after mile is marked with candid observations, outlandish circumstances and insights that define the American experience.
187 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 10, 2011
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Donald O'Donovan
8 books20 followersDonald O'Donovan is an optioned screenwriter and voice actor with film and audio book credits. He was born in Cooperstown, New York. A teenage runaway, O'Donovan rode freights, traveled the U.S., joined the army to get off the street, lived in Mexico, and worked at more than 200 occupations including long distance truck driver, undertaker and roller skate repairman.
The first draft of his novel NIGHT TRAIN was written on twenty-three yellow legal pads while the author was homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
The first draft of his novel NIGHT TRAIN was written on twenty-three yellow legal pads while the author was homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 13, 2013
A Christian Road Novel? Hardly. Well conceived, composed, and written? Yes!! Does O'Donovan know his product? He certainly does. I'm a retired long-haul trucker myself and can assure you that O'Donovan has seen a lot of road, can handle a rig, and has witnessed the dark side of life. Unfortunately, his characters represent much too large a percentage of society. He does however portray them with stark accuracy; black on black. I would rate 'Highway' a 'five' except that its content is too dark for me personally.
January 4, 2012
THE HIGHWAY by Donald O’Donovan
Living in a dying town with few restaurants, we frequent an establishment which originated some 30 years back, propelled by an Amish-inspired bill of fare and once the haunt of the after-church crowd such as the well-dressed elderly and the tackily-garbed over-populated tribes of rural families. Then the truck-stop just across the road from this dining “palace” closed about six years ago now, and the checkered nature of the ever-loyal fundamentalists who exercised their narrow-minded control over the allowance of smoking (no lighting up until after 4 o’clock ) tentatively and awkwardly nearly blended with the disgruntled transplanted trucker crowd is an absolute hoot. For convenience’s sake, we pass the non-nicotine crowd as if we are porters shuffling down a narrow aisled netherworld to join the wicked smoking crowd.
We over-hear tales reminiscent of those of Donald O’Donovan in his novel, “Highway” -- nearly thrice per week. However, narrator O’Donovan speaks of “toothpicks dancing in mouths” and authoritatively of dysfunctional families (“foolish, funny in head, not right”) and lost opportunities and the seedier side of the vagabond’s life and references Dostoevsky, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy while transporting us about the country. We have actually listened to one of his “fictional” phrases repetitively: “I’m a goddamn truck driver -- I’ve been to every town in the U.S. ” several times a table or two away from ourselves – simultaneously whining and swaggering in tone.
However, “schmeckle” and “propounded” and “lascivious billboards” or a “shimmering mirage of Dairy Queens and dissolving mountain peaks” would shock us to hear. We must read novels composed in a fictional style by those who have lived and endured such experiences and adventures and boredom on the road while navigating innumerable ribbons of highways and from the astute minds of those who possess observational skills coupled with the sheer genius to transport us beside themselves in the truck’s cab.
Nestled near a tiny “downtown” south of our HIGHWAY 30 which slices through the northern tip of our community and runs right past the WAL-MART which massacred all local business, we realize somebody HAS to deliver pianos, livestock, retail goods, but not until lately have we dined with such souls. Thus, rather well-armed to comprehend where this script-writing, womanizing, philosophizing dreamer may be chauffeuring us toward, the E-book seemed like a busman’s holiday to this reader.
About Tuesday, I shall return to the red-neck-tinged wannabe - “ Deerhunter ” (s)’ Algonquin Club knowing more about these fellows than even they themselves might . For example, tidbits stuck with me, such as: “99% turnover in the trucking industry” and “It’s no picnic out there—it’s a hard life” and that lawns CAN be visualized by guys , behind the steering wheels of rigs , as “absinthe-green”!
O’Donovan’s discussion of a Singer Sewing Machine controversy -- deeply imbedded within familial consciousness -- causing the droning humming of one tune only , “What might have been …”, seemed perfectly positioned near the story’s conclusion and explains the narrator’s perpetual youthful yet prescient quest to ride relentlessly on the back of his childhood friend, a treasured , wooden, red-wheeled toy named “Butchie Bear”! Shades of that fabulous classic “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence! No fooling!
Susie Sexton (www.susieduncansexton.com)
Living in a dying town with few restaurants, we frequent an establishment which originated some 30 years back, propelled by an Amish-inspired bill of fare and once the haunt of the after-church crowd such as the well-dressed elderly and the tackily-garbed over-populated tribes of rural families. Then the truck-stop just across the road from this dining “palace” closed about six years ago now, and the checkered nature of the ever-loyal fundamentalists who exercised their narrow-minded control over the allowance of smoking (no lighting up until after 4 o’clock ) tentatively and awkwardly nearly blended with the disgruntled transplanted trucker crowd is an absolute hoot. For convenience’s sake, we pass the non-nicotine crowd as if we are porters shuffling down a narrow aisled netherworld to join the wicked smoking crowd.
We over-hear tales reminiscent of those of Donald O’Donovan in his novel, “Highway” -- nearly thrice per week. However, narrator O’Donovan speaks of “toothpicks dancing in mouths” and authoritatively of dysfunctional families (“foolish, funny in head, not right”) and lost opportunities and the seedier side of the vagabond’s life and references Dostoevsky, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy while transporting us about the country. We have actually listened to one of his “fictional” phrases repetitively: “I’m a goddamn truck driver -- I’ve been to every town in the U.S. ” several times a table or two away from ourselves – simultaneously whining and swaggering in tone.
However, “schmeckle” and “propounded” and “lascivious billboards” or a “shimmering mirage of Dairy Queens and dissolving mountain peaks” would shock us to hear. We must read novels composed in a fictional style by those who have lived and endured such experiences and adventures and boredom on the road while navigating innumerable ribbons of highways and from the astute minds of those who possess observational skills coupled with the sheer genius to transport us beside themselves in the truck’s cab.
Nestled near a tiny “downtown” south of our HIGHWAY 30 which slices through the northern tip of our community and runs right past the WAL-MART which massacred all local business, we realize somebody HAS to deliver pianos, livestock, retail goods, but not until lately have we dined with such souls. Thus, rather well-armed to comprehend where this script-writing, womanizing, philosophizing dreamer may be chauffeuring us toward, the E-book seemed like a busman’s holiday to this reader.
About Tuesday, I shall return to the red-neck-tinged wannabe - “ Deerhunter ” (s)’ Algonquin Club knowing more about these fellows than even they themselves might . For example, tidbits stuck with me, such as: “99% turnover in the trucking industry” and “It’s no picnic out there—it’s a hard life” and that lawns CAN be visualized by guys , behind the steering wheels of rigs , as “absinthe-green”!
O’Donovan’s discussion of a Singer Sewing Machine controversy -- deeply imbedded within familial consciousness -- causing the droning humming of one tune only , “What might have been …”, seemed perfectly positioned near the story’s conclusion and explains the narrator’s perpetual youthful yet prescient quest to ride relentlessly on the back of his childhood friend, a treasured , wooden, red-wheeled toy named “Butchie Bear”! Shades of that fabulous classic “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence! No fooling!
Susie Sexton (www.susieduncansexton.com)
July 17, 2013
This is quite possibly the worst book I have read in the last 10 years. This book goes nowhere. the characters are not interesting nor is the story, what little there is of it. the first chapter is about being a truck driver with Armando an illegal who speaks no English. The second chapter is where he grew up, equallly boring, the 3rd chapter really had no theme, after that I lost any hope of caring about anything in this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews