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The Spark and the Drive
By an award-winning writer of short fiction, a devastatingly powerful debut novel of hero-worship, first love, and betrayal
Justin Bailey is seventeen when he arrives at the shop of legendary muscle car mechanic Nick Campbell. Anguished and out of place among the students at his rural Connecticut high school, Justin finds in Nick, his captivating wife Mary Ann, and their world of miraculous machines the sense of family he has struggled to find at home.
But when Nick and Mary Ann’s lives are struck by tragedy, Justin’s own world is upended. Suddenly Nick, once celebrated for his mechanical genius, has lost his touch. Mary Ann, once tender and compassionate to her husband, has turned distant. As Justin tries to support his suffering mentor, he finds himself drawn toward the man’s grieving wife. Torn apart by feelings of betrayal, Justin must choose between the man he admires more than his own father and the woman he yearns for.
A poignant and fiercely original debut, with moments of fast-paced suspense, Wayne Harrison's The Spark and The Drive is the unforgettable story of a young man forced to make an impossible decision—no matter the consequences.
Justin Bailey is seventeen when he arrives at the shop of legendary muscle car mechanic Nick Campbell. Anguished and out of place among the students at his rural Connecticut high school, Justin finds in Nick, his captivating wife Mary Ann, and their world of miraculous machines the sense of family he has struggled to find at home.
But when Nick and Mary Ann’s lives are struck by tragedy, Justin’s own world is upended. Suddenly Nick, once celebrated for his mechanical genius, has lost his touch. Mary Ann, once tender and compassionate to her husband, has turned distant. As Justin tries to support his suffering mentor, he finds himself drawn toward the man’s grieving wife. Torn apart by feelings of betrayal, Justin must choose between the man he admires more than his own father and the woman he yearns for.
A poignant and fiercely original debut, with moments of fast-paced suspense, Wayne Harrison's The Spark and The Drive is the unforgettable story of a young man forced to make an impossible decision—no matter the consequences.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published July 15, 2014
4 people are currently reading
945 people want to read
About the author
Wayne Harrison
4 books32 followersBefore working as a corrections officer in Rutland, Vermont, Wayne Harrison was an auto mechanic for six years in Waterbury, Connecticut. A first-generation college student, he began in his mid twenties as a criminal justice major before getting turned on to creative writing by mentor and friend Jeffrey Greene. He later received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
His fiction has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. His short stories appear in Best American Short Stories 2010, The Atlantic, Narrative Magazine, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, The Sun, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, FiveChapters, New Letters and other magazines. One story was Notable in Best American 2009 and one received special mention in Pushcart Prizes 2012. His fiction has earned a Maytag fellowship, an Oregon Literary fellowship and a Fishtrap Writing Fellowship. He teaches writing at Oregon State University. His first novel, The Spark and the Drive, will be published by St. Martin's Press in July 2014.
Advance praise for The Spark and the Drive:
"Young men will always idolize the father substitutes who promise them a way out of the familiar. Ever volatile, such relationships fuel some of our best literature, and to this category we must now add Wayne Harrison's gorgeous and grittily poetic debut novel. Set in an auto shop in working class Connecticut at the end of the golden age of the American muscle car, The Spark and the Drive has all the horsepower and headlong beauty of the extraordinary machines at its center."
– Ann Packer, best-selling author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Swim Back to Me
"This novel vividly renders the cult-like world of muscle car enthusiasts, but the author's ultimate concerns are the sparks and misfires of the human heart. Wayne Harrison is an exciting new voice in American fiction."
– Ron Rash, best-selling author of The Cove and Serena
"Wayne Harrison knows, like no one I’ve ever read before, how to describe what goes on underneath the hood of a car. But more, much more, he knows what goes underneath our skins. He knows all about our deepest desires and what we’ll do to attain them. The Spark and the Drive is as intense and well-written a love story as you’ll find. I’ll be in the grip of Justin's – and Mary Ann’s – story for months to come." – Peter Orner, award-winning author of Esther Stories and Love and Shame and Love
His fiction has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. His short stories appear in Best American Short Stories 2010, The Atlantic, Narrative Magazine, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, The Sun, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, FiveChapters, New Letters and other magazines. One story was Notable in Best American 2009 and one received special mention in Pushcart Prizes 2012. His fiction has earned a Maytag fellowship, an Oregon Literary fellowship and a Fishtrap Writing Fellowship. He teaches writing at Oregon State University. His first novel, The Spark and the Drive, will be published by St. Martin's Press in July 2014.
Advance praise for The Spark and the Drive:
"Young men will always idolize the father substitutes who promise them a way out of the familiar. Ever volatile, such relationships fuel some of our best literature, and to this category we must now add Wayne Harrison's gorgeous and grittily poetic debut novel. Set in an auto shop in working class Connecticut at the end of the golden age of the American muscle car, The Spark and the Drive has all the horsepower and headlong beauty of the extraordinary machines at its center."
– Ann Packer, best-selling author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Swim Back to Me
"This novel vividly renders the cult-like world of muscle car enthusiasts, but the author's ultimate concerns are the sparks and misfires of the human heart. Wayne Harrison is an exciting new voice in American fiction."
– Ron Rash, best-selling author of The Cove and Serena
"Wayne Harrison knows, like no one I’ve ever read before, how to describe what goes on underneath the hood of a car. But more, much more, he knows what goes underneath our skins. He knows all about our deepest desires and what we’ll do to attain them. The Spark and the Drive is as intense and well-written a love story as you’ll find. I’ll be in the grip of Justin's – and Mary Ann’s – story for months to come." – Peter Orner, award-winning author of Esther Stories and Love and Shame and Love
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August 13, 2014
America’s love affair with cars has been running on fumes for years. With the bankruptcy of Detroit, the triumph of imports and our ever-clogging traffic, it’s harder than ever to recall when the country saw itself reflected in the chassis of a perfectly tuned automobile.
Of course, teens still want to drive — away from their parents, at least — but how many spend Saturday afternoons in the garage tinkering on their clunkers? Combine an education system that neglects vocational training with a class system that denigrates mechanical labor and you eventually arrive at a nation of people who can’t change the oil on their Honda Civic. For all its unfathomable mystery, that “check engine” light might as well say, “capture unicorn.”
In the great encyclopedia that is modern fiction, I’ve read many more novels about the intricacies of trading stocks or making pastries or testing pharmaceuticals than I have about replacing a timing belt. Still, that arena of pistons and camshafts can be just as fascinating as any other arcane craft, which is what drew me to Wayne Harrison’s new novel, “The Spark and the Drive.” The dust jacket is eager to tell us that Harrison has published stories in McSweeney’s and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but — please — you can’t swing a torque wrench without hitting some Brooklyn novelist who’s done that. Far more singular is the fact that Harrison was once an auto mechanic. He can write with authority about engines and the people who fix these machines at the center of our lives.
As it turns out, his competence under the hood is just one of several qualities that makes “The Spark and the Drive” such an engaging debut. Like Richard Russo , Philipp Meyer and Mark Slouka, Harrison understands the rusting body of American labor. These are grease-smeared pages, full of the sounds of revving motors and the anxieties of narrowly educated men in a fading field.
Harrison’s first page casts the novel in the twilight of American muscle cars: “Ten years after the EPA came down on Detroit like a church on Galileo, we still see no renaissance of horsepower on the showroom floor.” That’s a death knell for the service stations dedicated to overhauling and repairing the real cars that Detroit once produced.
By the late 1980s, the new vehicles coming off the assembly lines are smaller, cleaner and controlled by electronics. We’ve read about the shuttering of factories and steel mills, but Harrison lets us hear the distant reverberations of that collapse in Waterbury, Conn. For mechanics who learned their trade in driveways and garages — men who can visualize “the valves open and close . . . the power stroke, the crank whipping through the oil” — this new world of computer diagnostics feels baffling, demoralizing and effete.
If any of this sounds familiar, you may be remembering an autobiographical story called “Least Resistance,” which Harrison published in the Atlantic in 2009. The next year it appeared in “Best American Short Stories,” and it’s been built out to encompass a more complex plot and a rapidly changing economy in “The Spark and the Drive.”
Justin Bailey, narrator of this mournful tale, knows the glory of American automobiles is already past, but that patina of nostalgia only makes the cars more irresistible. Rather than go off to college, he follows his heart and gets a job at the Out of the Hole auto shop.
“I fell in love with the math of physical mechanics, the order, the predictability,” he says, “that was lacking from my everyday life.” But it’s not just reliable cause-and-effect he craves. His mother, burdened with Justin’s younger sister, is an alcoholic; his father, a literary agent, has recently come out of the closet. All that turmoil leaves Justin casting about for a role model. “I understood the general repair mechanic to be the perfect masculine blend of strength and intelligence,” he says. “Real men had a natural respect for mechanics.”
That search for authentic masculinity is a weighty preoccupation of “The Spark and the Drive.” Justin narrates this story from years in the future when he’s a husband and father, but he can still recall how intensely his teenage self struggled to figure out how a man should behave. The consummate example is Nick Campbell, owner of the Out of the Hole and one of the finest mechanics in the country.
“In my eagerness he saw a certain capacity for imagination,” Justin says, “which was enough for me to feel anointed, to covet his life and believe that I could one day receive it as my own.”
This is, we sense from the start, a tale of doomed friendship and hard-won knowledge about the toxic mix of idolization and envy. While Nick is a prescient businessman and a fair-dealing boss, no one could possibly live up to Justin’s oxygenated ideals of manhood, competence and sexual vitality. That trouble becomes apparent early in the novel when Nick and his wife lose their baby to SIDS. Struck silent and alienated by grief, they both turn to Justin for solace. The eager teenager is flattered, of course, but he can’t possibly comprehend the harrowing depth of their sorrow or the complexity of their marriage. His efforts to befriend and comfort them eventually corrode into something shameful and destructive.
This relatively trim novel sometimes feels like a Ford Fiesta running on 12 cylinders. It’s elaborately tricked out with eye-catching accessories, from drag racing to drug dealing to rape and murder and a host of other violations. Harrison sometimes struggles to keep a balance between his mature, reflective narrator and the earnest young man he once was — so sensitive, so inclined to over-analysis and grandiosity. A little more distance, a little more irony in the narrator’s voice might have kept a few of these lines from grating with naivete.
That’s an awfully minor complaint, though, about such a terrifically engaging story. “Automobiles were like a great species among us,” Justin says, “more vital and abiding than most people in our lives, yet only a handful of us fully understood their complicated language.” Whether or not you love cars, Harrison speaks that special dialect so fluently that anyone with a heart can hear it. In this end, this isn’t so much a novel about the great vehicles we lost as it is about the antique ideals we keep rebuilding and polishing.
This review was first published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
Of course, teens still want to drive — away from their parents, at least — but how many spend Saturday afternoons in the garage tinkering on their clunkers? Combine an education system that neglects vocational training with a class system that denigrates mechanical labor and you eventually arrive at a nation of people who can’t change the oil on their Honda Civic. For all its unfathomable mystery, that “check engine” light might as well say, “capture unicorn.”
In the great encyclopedia that is modern fiction, I’ve read many more novels about the intricacies of trading stocks or making pastries or testing pharmaceuticals than I have about replacing a timing belt. Still, that arena of pistons and camshafts can be just as fascinating as any other arcane craft, which is what drew me to Wayne Harrison’s new novel, “The Spark and the Drive.” The dust jacket is eager to tell us that Harrison has published stories in McSweeney’s and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but — please — you can’t swing a torque wrench without hitting some Brooklyn novelist who’s done that. Far more singular is the fact that Harrison was once an auto mechanic. He can write with authority about engines and the people who fix these machines at the center of our lives.
As it turns out, his competence under the hood is just one of several qualities that makes “The Spark and the Drive” such an engaging debut. Like Richard Russo , Philipp Meyer and Mark Slouka, Harrison understands the rusting body of American labor. These are grease-smeared pages, full of the sounds of revving motors and the anxieties of narrowly educated men in a fading field.
Harrison’s first page casts the novel in the twilight of American muscle cars: “Ten years after the EPA came down on Detroit like a church on Galileo, we still see no renaissance of horsepower on the showroom floor.” That’s a death knell for the service stations dedicated to overhauling and repairing the real cars that Detroit once produced.
By the late 1980s, the new vehicles coming off the assembly lines are smaller, cleaner and controlled by electronics. We’ve read about the shuttering of factories and steel mills, but Harrison lets us hear the distant reverberations of that collapse in Waterbury, Conn. For mechanics who learned their trade in driveways and garages — men who can visualize “the valves open and close . . . the power stroke, the crank whipping through the oil” — this new world of computer diagnostics feels baffling, demoralizing and effete.
If any of this sounds familiar, you may be remembering an autobiographical story called “Least Resistance,” which Harrison published in the Atlantic in 2009. The next year it appeared in “Best American Short Stories,” and it’s been built out to encompass a more complex plot and a rapidly changing economy in “The Spark and the Drive.”
Justin Bailey, narrator of this mournful tale, knows the glory of American automobiles is already past, but that patina of nostalgia only makes the cars more irresistible. Rather than go off to college, he follows his heart and gets a job at the Out of the Hole auto shop.
“I fell in love with the math of physical mechanics, the order, the predictability,” he says, “that was lacking from my everyday life.” But it’s not just reliable cause-and-effect he craves. His mother, burdened with Justin’s younger sister, is an alcoholic; his father, a literary agent, has recently come out of the closet. All that turmoil leaves Justin casting about for a role model. “I understood the general repair mechanic to be the perfect masculine blend of strength and intelligence,” he says. “Real men had a natural respect for mechanics.”
That search for authentic masculinity is a weighty preoccupation of “The Spark and the Drive.” Justin narrates this story from years in the future when he’s a husband and father, but he can still recall how intensely his teenage self struggled to figure out how a man should behave. The consummate example is Nick Campbell, owner of the Out of the Hole and one of the finest mechanics in the country.
“In my eagerness he saw a certain capacity for imagination,” Justin says, “which was enough for me to feel anointed, to covet his life and believe that I could one day receive it as my own.”
This is, we sense from the start, a tale of doomed friendship and hard-won knowledge about the toxic mix of idolization and envy. While Nick is a prescient businessman and a fair-dealing boss, no one could possibly live up to Justin’s oxygenated ideals of manhood, competence and sexual vitality. That trouble becomes apparent early in the novel when Nick and his wife lose their baby to SIDS. Struck silent and alienated by grief, they both turn to Justin for solace. The eager teenager is flattered, of course, but he can’t possibly comprehend the harrowing depth of their sorrow or the complexity of their marriage. His efforts to befriend and comfort them eventually corrode into something shameful and destructive.
This relatively trim novel sometimes feels like a Ford Fiesta running on 12 cylinders. It’s elaborately tricked out with eye-catching accessories, from drag racing to drug dealing to rape and murder and a host of other violations. Harrison sometimes struggles to keep a balance between his mature, reflective narrator and the earnest young man he once was — so sensitive, so inclined to over-analysis and grandiosity. A little more distance, a little more irony in the narrator’s voice might have kept a few of these lines from grating with naivete.
That’s an awfully minor complaint, though, about such a terrifically engaging story. “Automobiles were like a great species among us,” Justin says, “more vital and abiding than most people in our lives, yet only a handful of us fully understood their complicated language.” Whether or not you love cars, Harrison speaks that special dialect so fluently that anyone with a heart can hear it. In this end, this isn’t so much a novel about the great vehicles we lost as it is about the antique ideals we keep rebuilding and polishing.
This review was first published in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
June 1, 2014
Full disclosure: I received an advance readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
I'd rate this 4.5 stars.
Seventeen-year-old Justin Bailey is growing up in a small, rural town just outside of Waterbury, Connecticut. Feeling socially isolated among his fellow high school students, Justin lands an internship at a garage owned by renowned mechanic Nick Campbell, famed for his ability to transform muscle cars into powerful machines.
In Nick, Justin finds a friend, a mentor, an inspiration, even a bit of a father figure, since his father moved out of the house a few years before. Nick encourages Justin's mechanical skills, finally guiding him in a direction for his future. Working alongside fellow mechanics Ray and Bobby, Justin begins to develop confidence, despite their good-natured teasing. And even though he is fiercely protective of his much-younger sister April and his mother, who is struggling with alcoholism, when Justin is with Nick, his wife Mary Ann, and their young son, he finally feels as if he belongs.
Yet when tragedy strikes Nick and Mary Ann, things change dramatically. For the first time, cars are returning to the garage requiring rechecks of work Nick performed, and the mechanics wonder whether this mechanic known across the country for his skills has lost his touch. As Justin tries to help Nick, he finds himself growing increasingly drawn to Mary Ann, whose emotional instability leads Justin to believe her marriage to Nick might be over. Justin is torn between the possibility of a relationship with Mary Ann and the idea of betraying the one man who has been consistently good to him.
Wayne Harrison is an excellent writer and while the elements of this plot may be familiar, his storytelling ability makes it tremendously compelling. This is a book about the dilemma between love and betrayal, about the emotional angst that the cusp of adulthood can bring, and of struggling to find your way in the world when you don't feel as if there is a place for you. While Justin's actions weren't always admirable, they were in keeping with a young man of 18 years old, and this only added to the depth and complexity of his character.
I really look forward to seeing what's next in Harrison's career. This was a book driven as much by talented writing as it was by plot, and I definitely hope it finds an audience.
I'd rate this 4.5 stars.
Seventeen-year-old Justin Bailey is growing up in a small, rural town just outside of Waterbury, Connecticut. Feeling socially isolated among his fellow high school students, Justin lands an internship at a garage owned by renowned mechanic Nick Campbell, famed for his ability to transform muscle cars into powerful machines.
In Nick, Justin finds a friend, a mentor, an inspiration, even a bit of a father figure, since his father moved out of the house a few years before. Nick encourages Justin's mechanical skills, finally guiding him in a direction for his future. Working alongside fellow mechanics Ray and Bobby, Justin begins to develop confidence, despite their good-natured teasing. And even though he is fiercely protective of his much-younger sister April and his mother, who is struggling with alcoholism, when Justin is with Nick, his wife Mary Ann, and their young son, he finally feels as if he belongs.
Yet when tragedy strikes Nick and Mary Ann, things change dramatically. For the first time, cars are returning to the garage requiring rechecks of work Nick performed, and the mechanics wonder whether this mechanic known across the country for his skills has lost his touch. As Justin tries to help Nick, he finds himself growing increasingly drawn to Mary Ann, whose emotional instability leads Justin to believe her marriage to Nick might be over. Justin is torn between the possibility of a relationship with Mary Ann and the idea of betraying the one man who has been consistently good to him.
Wayne Harrison is an excellent writer and while the elements of this plot may be familiar, his storytelling ability makes it tremendously compelling. This is a book about the dilemma between love and betrayal, about the emotional angst that the cusp of adulthood can bring, and of struggling to find your way in the world when you don't feel as if there is a place for you. While Justin's actions weren't always admirable, they were in keeping with a young man of 18 years old, and this only added to the depth and complexity of his character.
I really look forward to seeing what's next in Harrison's career. This was a book driven as much by talented writing as it was by plot, and I definitely hope it finds an audience.
May 6, 2014
Wayne Harrison shows all the potential to become a major literary voice. Once a mechanic himself, in his debut novel, The Spark and the Drive, he writes intimately about the oily glamour of working under a hood, with a precision equal to the machines he extols.
He based this novel on his short story, Least Resistance, which was included in The Atlantic’s 2009 fiction edition, and subsequently anthologized in Best American Short Stories the following year. He chose the little known town of Waterbury, Connecticut for the setting. The era is the 1980’s, a time when hot rods had to change their emission standards to satisfy the new regulations of the EPA. His heroes are the mechanics, who had to either adapt to the new requirements of their profession, or become obsolete.
Nick Campbell, a legendary mechanic who formerly worked with Nascar, is committing errors under the hood that even his apprentice balks at. This young mechanic is Justin Bailey, whose own repairs Nick monitors and corrects from across the noisy bays. Nobody understands how Nick could display such mastery while simultaneously his own repairs come back for rechecks. It ruins the morale of the mechanics who work for him. Nick himself suspects he might have Alzheimer's.
With authority, Harrison puts you right under the hood with these mechanics while they do their work. With detail the likes of which you’ve probably never read before, he depicts what should be mundane car repairs. Somehow, through his spare but energetic word choice, he makes the engine work as exciting as any narrative description out there, if not more so because of his literary departure. Carburetor overhauls and engine diagnostics take on epic proportions. As the characters have so much invested in the success of their mechanical repairs, every tightened bolt takes on dramatic meaning.
The novel further explores how the auto repair subculture can be compared to a dysfunctional nuclear family. Justin comes from a broken home and clearly exhibits unresolved issues around his estranged father. He fulfills his need for a father figure in Nick. Nick, meanwhile, grieves over a death in the family with his wife, Mary Ann. A stunningly complicated character, Mary Ann does the bookkeeping for the shop, navigating the male-dominated world of auto repair with a tough exterior while at the same time she yearns for real intimacy.
Wayne Harrison, portraying blue-collar realism, accomplishes what few novelists nowadays can. Each line of dialogue seems to be spoken out of the soulful depths of a living person. He introduces you to mechanics, to their significant others, to their clientele, pulling you through romances and tragedies, action scenes, and comedic interludes, with such force, such rare clarity, that it’s hard to comprehend how his work has yet to roar into the collective American psyche. It will be impossible for you to look at mechanics the same way again after you have viewed them through the imagination of this great author.
He based this novel on his short story, Least Resistance, which was included in The Atlantic’s 2009 fiction edition, and subsequently anthologized in Best American Short Stories the following year. He chose the little known town of Waterbury, Connecticut for the setting. The era is the 1980’s, a time when hot rods had to change their emission standards to satisfy the new regulations of the EPA. His heroes are the mechanics, who had to either adapt to the new requirements of their profession, or become obsolete.
Nick Campbell, a legendary mechanic who formerly worked with Nascar, is committing errors under the hood that even his apprentice balks at. This young mechanic is Justin Bailey, whose own repairs Nick monitors and corrects from across the noisy bays. Nobody understands how Nick could display such mastery while simultaneously his own repairs come back for rechecks. It ruins the morale of the mechanics who work for him. Nick himself suspects he might have Alzheimer's.
With authority, Harrison puts you right under the hood with these mechanics while they do their work. With detail the likes of which you’ve probably never read before, he depicts what should be mundane car repairs. Somehow, through his spare but energetic word choice, he makes the engine work as exciting as any narrative description out there, if not more so because of his literary departure. Carburetor overhauls and engine diagnostics take on epic proportions. As the characters have so much invested in the success of their mechanical repairs, every tightened bolt takes on dramatic meaning.
The novel further explores how the auto repair subculture can be compared to a dysfunctional nuclear family. Justin comes from a broken home and clearly exhibits unresolved issues around his estranged father. He fulfills his need for a father figure in Nick. Nick, meanwhile, grieves over a death in the family with his wife, Mary Ann. A stunningly complicated character, Mary Ann does the bookkeeping for the shop, navigating the male-dominated world of auto repair with a tough exterior while at the same time she yearns for real intimacy.
Wayne Harrison, portraying blue-collar realism, accomplishes what few novelists nowadays can. Each line of dialogue seems to be spoken out of the soulful depths of a living person. He introduces you to mechanics, to their significant others, to their clientele, pulling you through romances and tragedies, action scenes, and comedic interludes, with such force, such rare clarity, that it’s hard to comprehend how his work has yet to roar into the collective American psyche. It will be impossible for you to look at mechanics the same way again after you have viewed them through the imagination of this great author.
April 3, 2014
This novel resonated with me long after I read it. The story is a fast read and a page-turner—lively, original, and suspenseful. At the same time, it’s grounded in a moral imagination that prompts reflection, and pain, for the plight of the characters. It’s an American tragedy that plays out as we watch in fascination, hope, and dread.
The narrator, Justin, is nineteen, so we see the story through a filter of intense emotion that flies off every page. The other main characters—Justin’s parents; his hero, Nick; and Nick’s wife, Mary Ann—are haunted and disheartened by life losses. Justin’s gift, and his burden, is his belief that people can rise above the limits of their circumstances. Justin’s quest is to become an expert mechanic who tweaks the speed and power of late-sixties muscle cars—or even just to win the approval of Nick, who has achieved renown as just such a genius. All this is an outward expression of Justin’s inner journey: to build for himself a life of transcendent beauty.
Not only Justin but the other characters are drawn in depth. With some men authors, the women seem (to me) cardboard. Not so in this novel. All the characters are relatable, complicated, and heartbreakingly flawed. The world of the novel—the gritty industrial and agricultural small towns of Connecticut in the 1980s—is presented in careful, sensuous, and often hilarious detail.
Highest recommendation.
The narrator, Justin, is nineteen, so we see the story through a filter of intense emotion that flies off every page. The other main characters—Justin’s parents; his hero, Nick; and Nick’s wife, Mary Ann—are haunted and disheartened by life losses. Justin’s gift, and his burden, is his belief that people can rise above the limits of their circumstances. Justin’s quest is to become an expert mechanic who tweaks the speed and power of late-sixties muscle cars—or even just to win the approval of Nick, who has achieved renown as just such a genius. All this is an outward expression of Justin’s inner journey: to build for himself a life of transcendent beauty.
Not only Justin but the other characters are drawn in depth. With some men authors, the women seem (to me) cardboard. Not so in this novel. All the characters are relatable, complicated, and heartbreakingly flawed. The world of the novel—the gritty industrial and agricultural small towns of Connecticut in the 1980s—is presented in careful, sensuous, and often hilarious detail.
Highest recommendation.
April 15, 2014
A book set against the backdrop of an abandoned Biblical theme park called Holy Land — what's not to like? Justin, the main character, has washed out of his tony high school and is plunged into a completely different world, as are we, the reader. For a female reader this book is an especial pleasure, because we're in Justin's viewpoint so securely that we can get a rare and persuasive experience of what it's like to be a young man, with all its challenges and promises. Like approximately one billion other novels, this is "only" the story of a young man finding his way in the world, but absolutely uniquely, this has a sureness of voice and of detail that makes you forget you're anyone besides the viewpoint character. Justin becomes involved with his boss's family, beautifully portrayed — is it weird to say that this book is Edith Wharton crossed with Jack Kerouac? Anyway, it's both lyrical and lively, with touches — like the astonishing story of what happened to the obscenely expensive car! — that just leave you blinking with astonishment. This guy knows his stuff, and he writes it. A superb, moving, amazing novel.
May 21, 2014
I enjoyed this novel more than I thought I would, as it deals with a teenage boy who idolizes car mechanic Nick Campbell. I have zero abilities with anything mechanical, and I thought fans of The Fast and the Furious would like this. Not so. It is a walk through the painful yearnings and betrayals of love. Just how much do we risk for what the heart wants, and are we willing to hurt those we idolize to get what we think we need? There are quite a few jaded adults in this story, those who have lost the luster of living. What is more painful then being a bright eyed youth than entering real life through hard experience? The adults around him slowly fall apart, nothing is left hidden, and even idols have their flaws. Oh the delicate cracks of growing up, this novel is wonderfully written and I enjoyed seeing through the eyes of a young man on the verge of adulthood. It's not a perspective I often read from. Terrific debut!
May 5, 2014
The Spark and the Drive delivers on its title. With gorgeous prose and complex working-class characters, this book explores the combustible life of Justin Bailey, a young mechanic who falls for his boss's wife. But Justin does more than inhabit this raw and highly-charged world; he is also a careful observer, and that is what makes this book such a pleasure to read. Justin has a gift for recognizing the romance and beauty in the most tattered environments, and he has the courage to stare unflinchingly at "the holy and the unholy, the right and the wrong," even when examining himself.
Harrison is a master of creating drama. At once both gritty and heartfelt, this book will have you fully engaged from the moment you pick it up.
Harrison is a master of creating drama. At once both gritty and heartfelt, this book will have you fully engaged from the moment you pick it up.
January 11, 2017
I loved the short story upon which this novel was based. When I read it, I immediately flagged Harrison as a writer whose career I wanted to follow. While he clearly has a lot of talent, I can't say I entirely enjoyed this novel. The plot veers off in so many directions from the original great premise of a young mechanic who finds work in the garage of a man he admires and then develops a huge crush on the man's wife. From there, we get sidetracks into a gang of high school boys who do James Dean/East of Eden-like drag racing, a car-thieving scheme and closing chapters (I won't divulge spoilers) that go down the path of familiar scenes we've seen all too often in TV movies (not to mention along the way we also get a gay father who came out of the closet halfway through his marriage, and a mother who became an alcoholic because of it). Through all it, my biggest problem is that the main character Justin does some very weird things that don't feel psychologically true. If he views the owner of the garage as his mentor, I don't fully understand why he would betray him as he does, and how he can carry on the way he does when he's doing it. Now, because I am married to a therapist, I have learned people can react in all kinds of surprisingly different ways to the same set of circumstances, but if a character does act in a wholly unexpected way, it would be great if you got inside their head enough to understand why they're doing the things they are. And for me, there just wasn't enough of that. And Justin's emotions, when we do get them, just aren't that varied. He stays friends with Nick his mentor, and never seem to have any guilt for betraying him. The writing here at the voice and structure level is very good -- but unless you're a mechanic there are sections of description that are impossible to understand. And then the writing turns densely lyrical whenever Justin gets really turned on by Maryann's body (Nick's wife). Maybe I'm jaundiced, but a teenage boy getting aroused by a pretty older woman doesn't seem that extraordinary to me to warrant so many passages of flights of fancy prose. Harrison is still on my watch list, and I look forward to reading what he does next, but this one was a bit of letdown for me.
August 10, 2014
I get the pleasure of reading this book by Wayne Harrison for free thanks to Goodreads First Reader giveaways!
The author, Wayne Harrison, takes his own personal experience or should one say his joy and passion for cars, especially muscle cars and shares it in a way the reader can not only relate to but absorb the excitement. What red blooded American male can resist horsepower and the mechanics that is involved in it? In this case the male, Justin, a social misfit living in a small rural town gets the opportunity to learn from the best, Nick Campbell.
Justin working along side of Nick helps Justin to finally come into himself. Nick becomes a mentor, a friend, and a father figure for Justin giving him courage, strength, and giving him the true sense of belonging. The storyline in "The Spark and the Drive" is not that simple. Like life, things change and gets more complicated. It is these complications that make the book a fast paced roller coaster from start to finish. One that I truly enjoyed and hope others will be able to experience it as well.
Thanks again Wayne Harrison and Goodreads First Reader Giveaways for allowing me this opportunity.
The author, Wayne Harrison, takes his own personal experience or should one say his joy and passion for cars, especially muscle cars and shares it in a way the reader can not only relate to but absorb the excitement. What red blooded American male can resist horsepower and the mechanics that is involved in it? In this case the male, Justin, a social misfit living in a small rural town gets the opportunity to learn from the best, Nick Campbell.
Justin working along side of Nick helps Justin to finally come into himself. Nick becomes a mentor, a friend, and a father figure for Justin giving him courage, strength, and giving him the true sense of belonging. The storyline in "The Spark and the Drive" is not that simple. Like life, things change and gets more complicated. It is these complications that make the book a fast paced roller coaster from start to finish. One that I truly enjoyed and hope others will be able to experience it as well.
Thanks again Wayne Harrison and Goodreads First Reader Giveaways for allowing me this opportunity.
April 15, 2015
**Thanks to Goodreads Giveaways/St. Martin’s Press for this ARC!**
This is a tricky book for me to rate. Overall I liked it. It’s not a happy story, nor does it move at a quick pace, but there is something there that makes you keep reading. The author has written these rich characters that are flawed in the all the ways humans naturally are…I think this is what compels you to continue reading. The writing is good, but I hesitate to call it well-written, as too often I had to go back and re-read whole paragraphs to comprehend what was being said or what had just happened. I am not sure why this was - possibly because it’s written from the point of view of a 17-year old, whose thoughts are not all that eloquent. Or the author may have been trying to capture the vernacular of small town mechanics in the 80’s. Either way, I’d definitely read another book by this author. Despite the tricky writing, I think it’s a story that will stay with me. 3.6 stars
This is a tricky book for me to rate. Overall I liked it. It’s not a happy story, nor does it move at a quick pace, but there is something there that makes you keep reading. The author has written these rich characters that are flawed in the all the ways humans naturally are…I think this is what compels you to continue reading. The writing is good, but I hesitate to call it well-written, as too often I had to go back and re-read whole paragraphs to comprehend what was being said or what had just happened. I am not sure why this was - possibly because it’s written from the point of view of a 17-year old, whose thoughts are not all that eloquent. Or the author may have been trying to capture the vernacular of small town mechanics in the 80’s. Either way, I’d definitely read another book by this author. Despite the tricky writing, I think it’s a story that will stay with me. 3.6 stars
July 22, 2017
As a rudderless teenager still smarting from the divorce of his parents after his father declared he liked men, Justin Bailey was primed to look up to the mechanic. Nick Campbell was strong, intelligent, and masculine — everything he wanted his father to be. The internship was a dream come true until tragedy turns adulation into a passive-agressive obsession.
While author Wayne Harrison's experience as an auto mechanic lends notable authenticity to the novel, it's his ability to convince readers to be sympathetic to Bailey that makes this novel so remarkable. By moving the story forward with objectively vivid detail and as an unreliable narrator, it's easy to become lost in the environment and accept one justification after another until agreeing with darkest of revelations.
While author Wayne Harrison's experience as an auto mechanic lends notable authenticity to the novel, it's his ability to convince readers to be sympathetic to Bailey that makes this novel so remarkable. By moving the story forward with objectively vivid detail and as an unreliable narrator, it's easy to become lost in the environment and accept one justification after another until agreeing with darkest of revelations.
July 27, 2014
When I first received this novel in the mail, I thought it would be all about mechanics and car repair. My reaction proves it's not always possible to really know a book until you open it and start reading a bit. The Spark And The Drive by Wayne Harrison is about more than I could ever imagine. I would say Mr. Harrison deals with the nuts and bolts of life experiences. In this instance, the novel mainly is about a couple's struggles to deal with the loss of a baby. Around this one event will swirl like a typhoon the lives of other people who become involved with Nick and his wife, Mary Ann.
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/revie...
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/revie...
November 26, 2014
SLJ review:
HARRISON, Wayne. The Spark and the Drive. 272p. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2014. Tr. $25.99. ISBN 9781250041241. LC 2014000133.
In his fantastic debut novel, Harrison finds surprising resonances between his main plot of a fiery love triangle and an underlying paean to the great American muscle cars and the mechanics who maintained them. The heart of both stories is Justin Bailey, a young man who has put off college to work at the garage of his idol, Nick Campbell, one of the best auto mechanics in Connecticut. When Nick and his wife Mary Ann lose their young son to SIDS, Nick begins to make mistakes at the garage and draws away from those close to him. Mary Ann, desperate for intimacy, turns to Justin, and the two begin a passionate affair. Justin, who loves Nick as a father, finds himself torn between helping Nick regain his edge and hoping that his mentor will finally pull away altogether and leave Mary Ann. Set in the early 1980s, as smog laws and computers are bringing about the death of the American muscle car, and the end of careers of mechanics like Nick, the novel sets up a brilliant parallel to the love triangle as Justin finds himself caught in the middle at the garage as well. He is old and idealistic enough to love Nick’s old ways, but young enough to be able to surpass Nick in the new ways. Harrison’s lovingly detailed descriptions of engine mechanics are almost more gorgeous than his romantic plot. No knowledge of cars is necessary, but teens with an interest in engines should find this coming-of-age story especially poignant.—Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA
http://blogs.slj.com/adult4teen/2014/...
HARRISON, Wayne. The Spark and the Drive. 272p. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2014. Tr. $25.99. ISBN 9781250041241. LC 2014000133.
In his fantastic debut novel, Harrison finds surprising resonances between his main plot of a fiery love triangle and an underlying paean to the great American muscle cars and the mechanics who maintained them. The heart of both stories is Justin Bailey, a young man who has put off college to work at the garage of his idol, Nick Campbell, one of the best auto mechanics in Connecticut. When Nick and his wife Mary Ann lose their young son to SIDS, Nick begins to make mistakes at the garage and draws away from those close to him. Mary Ann, desperate for intimacy, turns to Justin, and the two begin a passionate affair. Justin, who loves Nick as a father, finds himself torn between helping Nick regain his edge and hoping that his mentor will finally pull away altogether and leave Mary Ann. Set in the early 1980s, as smog laws and computers are bringing about the death of the American muscle car, and the end of careers of mechanics like Nick, the novel sets up a brilliant parallel to the love triangle as Justin finds himself caught in the middle at the garage as well. He is old and idealistic enough to love Nick’s old ways, but young enough to be able to surpass Nick in the new ways. Harrison’s lovingly detailed descriptions of engine mechanics are almost more gorgeous than his romantic plot. No knowledge of cars is necessary, but teens with an interest in engines should find this coming-of-age story especially poignant.—Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA
http://blogs.slj.com/adult4teen/2014/...
July 7, 2014
This review was published in the 7/1/14 issue of Library Journal:
Debut author Harrison mines his own background as an auto mechanic to deliver a gritty, authentic tale of a complicated marriage threatened by a first love. During the summer of 1985, 17-year-old Justin Bailey interns at Nick Campbell's garage Out of the Hole, one of the few places around that specializes in muscle cars. Years after his own father "accepted his sexuality" and his mother began her descent into alcoholism, Justin finds a father figure in Nick, a local legend among gearheads. Tragedy strikes when Nick and his wife, Mary Ann, lose their infant son to SIDS, and in their grief, the Campbells turn to Justin to fill the void. Justin and Nick go drag racing after hours with a rare Corvette left behind in the shop, chasing death with every heat; at the same time, Justin begins an affair with Mary Ann. The betrayals begin adding up, leading to a grim but well-earned resolution. VERDICT Harrison writes cleanly and vividly about the world of auto garages, producing an elegiac novel about working-class dreams dashed by reality, a Bruce Springsteen song set to prose.—Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L.
Copyright ©2014 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Debut author Harrison mines his own background as an auto mechanic to deliver a gritty, authentic tale of a complicated marriage threatened by a first love. During the summer of 1985, 17-year-old Justin Bailey interns at Nick Campbell's garage Out of the Hole, one of the few places around that specializes in muscle cars. Years after his own father "accepted his sexuality" and his mother began her descent into alcoholism, Justin finds a father figure in Nick, a local legend among gearheads. Tragedy strikes when Nick and his wife, Mary Ann, lose their infant son to SIDS, and in their grief, the Campbells turn to Justin to fill the void. Justin and Nick go drag racing after hours with a rare Corvette left behind in the shop, chasing death with every heat; at the same time, Justin begins an affair with Mary Ann. The betrayals begin adding up, leading to a grim but well-earned resolution. VERDICT Harrison writes cleanly and vividly about the world of auto garages, producing an elegiac novel about working-class dreams dashed by reality, a Bruce Springsteen song set to prose.—Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L.
Copyright ©2014 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
September 6, 2014
When I started reading this book, I was bored and confused by all the car talk. All of the reviews I had read raved about this book and said that it wasn't necessary to know about cars or to be interested in cars in order to love this book so I kept reading and I'm so glad I did because this was a really great book.
Justin is just a kid in high school when he meets Nick and Mary Ann and begins an internship in Nick's auto mechanic business. When he's done with high school he decides he doesn't want to go to college. He wants to work for Nick, to learn everything he can from this master mechanic who specializes in muscle cars, the kind they don't make anymore because the EPA has decided they're bad for the environment.It's the 80's and soon every car will be computerized to one extent or another.
When tragedy strikes Nick and Mary Ann's little family, their marriage starts to fall apart. Justin worships Nick and lusts after Mary Ann and soon young Justin is involved in some pretty serious deceit. He wants Mary Ann to leave Nick and is afraid that she never will. He decides to take matters into his own hands and the consequences of his actions change all of their lives forever.
Wayne Harrison has done an amazing job with this book. I'm so glad that I pushed on past all the mechanic lingo to get to the good stuff.
Justin is just a kid in high school when he meets Nick and Mary Ann and begins an internship in Nick's auto mechanic business. When he's done with high school he decides he doesn't want to go to college. He wants to work for Nick, to learn everything he can from this master mechanic who specializes in muscle cars, the kind they don't make anymore because the EPA has decided they're bad for the environment.It's the 80's and soon every car will be computerized to one extent or another.
When tragedy strikes Nick and Mary Ann's little family, their marriage starts to fall apart. Justin worships Nick and lusts after Mary Ann and soon young Justin is involved in some pretty serious deceit. He wants Mary Ann to leave Nick and is afraid that she never will. He decides to take matters into his own hands and the consequences of his actions change all of their lives forever.
Wayne Harrison has done an amazing job with this book. I'm so glad that I pushed on past all the mechanic lingo to get to the good stuff.
July 23, 2014
Goodreads Win
Justin Barker is a teenager who ends up working at a car shop of a famous mechanic Nick Campbell. He is a typical outcast at school who has his own problems at home with a drunken mother and a younger sister.
He idolizes Nick as he learns the trade but is tongue tied around Nick’s wife Mary Ann. Falling into the world of fast cars, he finds himself a sense of being a family.
When tragedy hits Nick and Mary Ann their lives begin to crumble and Nick tries to keep it together. Covering up for Nick mistakes as the once talented mechanic starts to falter and Justin falling in love with Mary Ann as she uses him to cover her pain. Justin finds himself caught up in the middle.
It’s about struggle of growing up and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sacrifices we must make for others at the cost of our own happiness. A poignant reminder that life is not fair.
Justin Barker is a teenager who ends up working at a car shop of a famous mechanic Nick Campbell. He is a typical outcast at school who has his own problems at home with a drunken mother and a younger sister.
He idolizes Nick as he learns the trade but is tongue tied around Nick’s wife Mary Ann. Falling into the world of fast cars, he finds himself a sense of being a family.
When tragedy hits Nick and Mary Ann their lives begin to crumble and Nick tries to keep it together. Covering up for Nick mistakes as the once talented mechanic starts to falter and Justin falling in love with Mary Ann as she uses him to cover her pain. Justin finds himself caught up in the middle.
It’s about struggle of growing up and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sacrifices we must make for others at the cost of our own happiness. A poignant reminder that life is not fair.
April 29, 2016
Set in the mid-1980s in a small blue-collar Connecticut town, this is a remarkably accomplished and compelling novel. Seventeen year old Justin Bailey is thrilled when he gets an apprenticeship at a local car body shop which is famous for enhancing and maintaining muscle cars (a term new to me, but I’m really quite knowledgeable about them now!). He loves his job, he loves the camaraderie, and he develops quite a crush on the owner, Nick. But then something happens that complicates everything and Justin ends up making some very bad choices indeed. There’s some very fine writing here indeed. The descriptions of the town, the cars, the body shop are all so vivid and evocative. Justin’s home life, his inarticulate longings, his confusions are all expertly conveyed. I found the book engaging and convincing, the characters believable, the atmosphere authentic. Thoroughly enjoyable.
June 8, 2014
I'm not much of a fan of cars but this book was magical. The characters are so engaging and real I felt as if I knew them. It captured me emotionally to the point where I disagreed with some of their decisions and hoped it would turn out differently. Not that the author did a bad job with the plot, but I wanted more for them although it just wasn't in their fate. I did learn some interesting things about hot rods and got to view the life of mechanics I wouldn't have known otherwise. Amazing dialogue and scenes that brought me into their world for awhile and I loved it. I would highly recommend this book if you are looking for a new twist to a love story and some fun car action too!
April 10, 2017
This is a terrific book. Unlike anything I've ever read. Perhaps it's just me, but I truly connected with the main character here. So young and naive- but trying his absolute best to be a man, desperately, despite the reality. The mechanical work described in this book is also fascinating. One of my favorite elements. The inside cover quote by Maggie Shepard says what I think is the ultimate story and lesson: "...twists of fate that make one boy into a man and lead him to the painful discovery that love and loyalty can't always be reconciled."
February 3, 2015
THE SPARK AND THE DRIVE by Wayne Harrison is a touching coming of age novel set in working class western Connecticut, largely at a muscle car mechanic’s shop. The narrator is a seventeen-year-old boy who becomes enthralled with the shop’s owner and falls in love with the shop owner’s wife. It speaks well of the book that I was engaged by it though I have not the slightest interest in cars.
October 24, 2014
A good story...lots of "angst" but pockets of vivid description. I enjoyed reading in the setting of Waterbury, CT. An "interesting" ending...can't decide if I would prefer a different ending or not. Maybe I wanted the "happily ever after" version...
March 27, 2015
Coming of age novel with a muscle car backdrop. Good character development of the main and supporting players in this drama. Enough detail and obvious love of men and their machines. Realistic ending which doesn't feel good but does look a lot like the price of betrayal.
August 16, 2016
This will make a great movie. Classic cars, a love triangle (possibly a love diamond if you consider Nick/Justin?), the alcoholic mother, the homosexual father and a coming-of-age tale -- what else could you ask for.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 21, 2016
An un usuel combine of âge story taking place in the context of body Work garage With men who really like cars and engines.
August 3, 2025
This story was a hard one to put down. A page turner full of risk taking, dream chasing, deception, forgiveness and starting over had me anticipating what was next chapter after chapter.
It tells the story of a group of car mechanics all battling their own troubles. When the young apprentice mechanic falls for the leads wife, twists and turns I fold as they navigate what their new reality has become.
This book shows how tragedy and grief can cloud one’s judgment and lead them to become a version of themselves they no longer recognize! Mix in a little bit of spice and it makes for a thrilling adventure, one page to the next!
It tells the story of a group of car mechanics all battling their own troubles. When the young apprentice mechanic falls for the leads wife, twists and turns I fold as they navigate what their new reality has become.
This book shows how tragedy and grief can cloud one’s judgment and lead them to become a version of themselves they no longer recognize! Mix in a little bit of spice and it makes for a thrilling adventure, one page to the next!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2020
The details and the emotional depth of this novel make it one of the best coming-of-age stories I can remember. There's a reverence for the work and the objects of that work that becomes almost transcendent at times in the most refreshing ways. The love triangle and the awful but believable behavior left me with an ache in my heart that reminded me of my youthful reading of A Separate Peace, which would seem a radically different book, but having a bit of the same sad regret. This is an amazing book!
December 12, 2018
I had Wayne as an instructor for a writing class, so I was interested to read his novel. It's very well written, and I like the characters. He's either very knowledgeable about vintage muscle cars, or he did lots of research. It's a great story with lots of incredible detail.
June 29, 2017
Unless you're an enthusiastic car aficionado with a penchant for poorly written books, this is not for you. Turns out I'm neither of those things. Oh well.
January 1, 2015
This novel is set in the 80s, after the revered time of the old muscle cars of the 60s and 70s. The story begins with Justin gaining employment with Nick Campbell. While working for him, he is struggling with many issues in his life and, as a consequence of becoming involved in his mentor's problems, unwisely pursues a relationship of sorts with Nick's grieving wife. Nick and Mary Ann have problems that are not easy for any couple to deal with, and Justin, though immature and unequipped at his young age, attempts to be the man that Nick cannot as he grieves silently in his shop.
Throughout the novel, I had a sense of how these characters and their situation would be quite interesting portrayed in movie format. It is perfect for car afficionados who will enjoy all of the detailed references to the type of repair and restoration that Justin and Nick are involved in. The novel is balanced between being very focused on the process of car restoration and between the subtle restoration that the characters themselves are undergoing in the process, though that process is extremely messy.
Despite the strange and uncomfortable love triangle and all of the violations it causes to each of the characters, they somehow learn from the experience and are stronger as a result in the midst of the mess of their own mistakes. This world is a broken, messy place, and these characters show that through their actions.
I think of this book as being something that men or car lovers would particularly enjoy because of all of the descriptions of Justin and Nick working on cars. Some of the references were lost on me, but I was able to grasp the overall storyline and enjoy it.
Throughout the novel, I had a sense of how these characters and their situation would be quite interesting portrayed in movie format. It is perfect for car afficionados who will enjoy all of the detailed references to the type of repair and restoration that Justin and Nick are involved in. The novel is balanced between being very focused on the process of car restoration and between the subtle restoration that the characters themselves are undergoing in the process, though that process is extremely messy.
Despite the strange and uncomfortable love triangle and all of the violations it causes to each of the characters, they somehow learn from the experience and are stronger as a result in the midst of the mess of their own mistakes. This world is a broken, messy place, and these characters show that through their actions.
I think of this book as being something that men or car lovers would particularly enjoy because of all of the descriptions of Justin and Nick working on cars. Some of the references were lost on me, but I was able to grasp the overall storyline and enjoy it.
September 8, 2014
While this story was billed as a love story, it was actually a very different book than I typically read. As told in the fascinating male-only first person POV, the book provided some interesting insight into the late teenage years of a male as he came into his own and found a place in the world.
The male author is a former auto mechanic, and the book is extremely heavy on the workings of cars from the past and how all the engines changed with computerized parts, revolutionizing the industry and dehumanizing auto repair. While interesting for awhile, this emphasis got very old as it was told in excruciating detail. I kept reading and waiting for more human interaction, but it was still a side story to the central world of car repair and then racing revved up cars.
The "love story", an affair between Justin and MaryAnn, a pretty cold, decade older married woman that used Justin and his innocence to dull her own pain, was physical and often just icky and unappealing. Justin was always a sympathetic character who tried so hard and wanted to please his mom, sister, Mary Ann, Mary Ann's husband Nick (his boss)all the time. I rooted for him and was so sad and disappointed with the horrible ending. I also felt cheated that even though the book was written as a flashback story of an older married man, a father, we never got an ending or an epilogue to provide closure. I felt we deserved to know how his life turned out. Instead I was left with an empty feeling after devoting several hours here.
The male author is a former auto mechanic, and the book is extremely heavy on the workings of cars from the past and how all the engines changed with computerized parts, revolutionizing the industry and dehumanizing auto repair. While interesting for awhile, this emphasis got very old as it was told in excruciating detail. I kept reading and waiting for more human interaction, but it was still a side story to the central world of car repair and then racing revved up cars.
The "love story", an affair between Justin and MaryAnn, a pretty cold, decade older married woman that used Justin and his innocence to dull her own pain, was physical and often just icky and unappealing. Justin was always a sympathetic character who tried so hard and wanted to please his mom, sister, Mary Ann, Mary Ann's husband Nick (his boss)all the time. I rooted for him and was so sad and disappointed with the horrible ending. I also felt cheated that even though the book was written as a flashback story of an older married man, a father, we never got an ending or an epilogue to provide closure. I felt we deserved to know how his life turned out. Instead I was left with an empty feeling after devoting several hours here.
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