If Only We Could Drive Like This Forever

by Elisabeth Harvor

Six short stories and a novella reveal the struggles of both adults and children to reach maturity as they attempt to balance the desire for freedom with the need for safety and security

Genres: Short Stories

Paperback

About the author

Erica Elisabeth Arendt Deichmann, known as Elisabeth Harvor, was a Canadian short story writer, poet, and novelist.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent stories (and a novella) from someone alive to the nuances and increments of family life, first love, the ups and downs of one evening. I was absorbed by them. It's hard to give examples because it takes the whole story for her fiction to really really work on you, but you can see how good she is from this:

But she greeted Arthur shyly, with her unsure eyes, as she approached him. She wasn't biting her lip, but her eyes had the look girl's eyes get when they are biting a lip, and her hair seemed to carry a silvery glow and crackle deep within it,like a pale bonfire.

She is especially good on smells:

The old man in 'The Age of Unreason' -
He stank as well - his shoes of manure, his shirt front of cooked mutton, his pants as if he had peed in them (but years ago), his pockets of raisins but with a cool burning breath in the smell, like peppermints.

Often it's more subtle than that though:

The ironing. The iron steaming upstream, up cloth, nosing into pockets, up pleats. The marvellous smell of it. Peppery silk, peppery cotton, sending their essences up with the steam... The salt of perspiration alchemized (by soap and water and steam) into pepper.

I can vouch for that being the family's ironer. Two hours every Sunday listening to the football (soccer).

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of print I think (I had to go to Amazon.ca to find the book listed) but worth hunting down. More great stories and a novella from Harvor.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very well-written. Despite that, I didn't really connect with any of the characters. With the exception of "The Students' Soiree," which was amazing and lively, I found the stories to be somewhat bleak, with characters that were more acted on than active participants in their own lives.

The feeling I got with most of the protagonists was of characters plodding through life, hoping for something better without much conviction, and feeling very powerless to actually affect any change. Only Bridge in "The Students' Soiree" has any vivacity or seems to enjoy life, and because of that, that story stood out for me like a shaft of light in the dark.

The stories are fine, I just found that they didn't engage me. I was left with a very flat feeling after reading this book.