Night Driving, the Invention of the Wheel & Other Blues: A Memoir

by Dick Dorworth

Dick has blended a lifelong commitment to writing, writing as a calling not just a job, fiercely personal writing, with a parallel life of mountain adventures: Skiing, ski racing, speed skiing, rock climbing and mountaineering. To date Dorworth has published 3 books, Night Driving, The Perfect Turn, and most recently, The Straight Course, a memoir of speed skiing in the 60s.

Night Driving, the Invention of the Wheel & Other Blues, is an action-packed memoir and meditation on a life in perpetual motion, across the West, down the length of South America. Driving as discovery, of self and the world. Dorworth goes beyond the open road as metaphor, and treats it as a grand stage for energetic.

First published as a special edition of Mountain Gazette, Night Driving appeared in book form published by First Ascent Press in 2007. Already a cult classic, Night Driving will soon be reissued in a new edition, both in paperback and as an eBook, by Western Eye Press.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2007

About the author

Dick Dorworth has skied and climbed in Europe, Asia, Alaska and South America; but he’s spent most of his life in the mountains of the West. He ski raced extensively from 1950 through 1965 and set the world record for speed on skis in Portillo, Chile in 1963. Dick taught and coached skiing for years,served as coach of the U.S. Ski Men’s Team, and later Directorof the Aspen Mountain Ski School.

Dorworth’s writing has appeared in Ski, Skiing, Powder, Snow Country, Mountain Gazette, Men’s Journal, Climbing, New West, Mariah, Wild Duck Review, Summit, and Backpacker.

Today he is a reporter and regular columnist for the Idaho Mountain Express in Ketchum, his home base. Most winter days he skis, either on his favorite mountain, Baldy, or in the backcountry. In summer he climbs.

Night Driving, Dorworth’s first book, was published in 2007 by First Ascent Press. The Perfect Turn, a collection of Dick’s ski writing, ranging from expedition accounts, to biographies of remarkable and particularly engaging skiers, to ski fiction was published by Western Eye Press in 2010 and immediately won the Ski History Association prize for the best new ski book of the year. Dorworth’s next book, The Straight Course, a memoir of speed skiing adventures around the world in the 60s was published the following year, also by Western Eye Press.

Reviews

[Cody Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent meditation for the restless, adventurous soul...

With a poetic and philosophical prose, Dorworth brings to life what it means to drive at night in the American West. Often we read about the great ascents and accomplishments, but rarely do we read about those existential moments spent behind the wheel driving through the night. The book reads like that interminable internal monologue you have with yourself while driving through the empty Nevada desert or up over Donner Pass.

Not to mention Dorworth’s accounts of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs are honest and humbling, and also a reflection of what youth looked like in the 1950s and 60s. His adventures with Yvon Chounaird in Central and South America are entertaining too. But the meditation this quick read provides is it’s true art form.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a compilation of Dick Dorworth's published writings. At the time, I enjoyed the writing of the Mountain Gazette article, Night Driving. I even saved the issue of the magazine for over 30 years. But, reading it today, it seems dated, like most of the articles. I would have enjoyed some current essays to hold the book together. The writing style is interesting and is a main reason to read the book.

[Colin Clancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profoundly strange and beautiful.

[Lauren Bergen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dreamy tales of nighttime driving under the influence, en route to bigger adventures.

Note: I had the Western Eye Press version with only Night Driving, so using this as an approximation.

[John Scrimgeour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and relatable ski bum roadtrip stories.