Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back

by Melissa Stephenson

For fans of Wild, a memoir of one woman's road to hope following her troubled brother's death, told through the series of cars that transported her.



Growing up in a blue-collar, Midwestern family, Melissa Stephenson longed for escape. Her wanderlust was an innate reaction to the powerful personalities around her, and came too from her desire to find a place in the world where her artistic ambitions wouldn't be thwarted. She found in automobiles the promise of a future. From a lineage of secondhand family cars of the late '60s, to the Honda that carried her from Montana to Texas as her new marriage disintegrated, to the '70s Ford she drove away from her brother's house after he took his life (leaving Melissa the truck, a dog, and a few mix tapes), to the VW van she now uses to take her kids camping, she knows these cars better than she knows some of the people closest to her.

Driven from grief and toward hope, Melissa reckons with what it means to lose a beloved sibling. Driven is a powerful story of healing, for all who have had to look back at pain to find the way forward.

"Written with a poet's ear and a traveler's grit, and it will be a comfort to anyone who has watched a loved one self-destruct."--Sarah Hepola, author of Blackout

"Not all writers are survivors and not all survivors are writers, but Melissa Stephenson is both and goddamn is she good. Driven is a book you will want to hold right against your heart, to take with you everywhere you go."--Domenica Ruta, author of With or Without You

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Travel, Autobiography

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 24, 2018

Reviews

[Brandice · Rating 3 out of 5]

It can be dangerous to buy into the comparison of one book to another, especially when you loved the original one in said comparison. I typically avoid buying into this type of hype, but have to admit the comparison to Wild, one of my favorite books, is what initially drew me to Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back. I thought it was a decent read but not nearly of the caliber of Wild.

Driven is a memoir by Melissa Stephenson, centered around her grief in the aftermath of her brother’s death. Stephenson is a good writer - It was easy to feel for her and the pain she felt as a result of Matthew’s death. She has a love of cars and a constant case of wanderlust, both themes that remain present throughout her story. She also writes about her childhood, her parents, her marriage, and touches on motherhood.

The book started off intriguing me but began to wane as the story progressed. I wasn’t able to fully connect with and enjoy it to the level I hoped to - It was just missing something for me, though I am sensitive to the fact that Driven is a deeply personal story.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of Driven in exchange for an honest review.

[Bookgypsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't feel like i read a memoir; I felt more like I was just having coffee and a chat with someone who was telling me their life story. It was written like a conversation with the reader and I really enjoyed that.I think this book is very relevant right now because of the way the author talks about her brother and how he affected their lives. Suicide is a big topic right now and this story has some powerful insights to it and how to deal with the aftermath. Depression is a very serious illness; check up on your loved ones, even the ones that seem to be happy. My heart breaks for the author and her family, but she used her heartbreak to become stronger.

[Karen Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that has a theme that sneaks up on you. I was unsure of where this would take me, but I did enjoy the journey. Written with a contemporary bent, this book examines grief and what it is like to have a sibling being taken so young.

Growing up in a blue-collar Midwest family, the author uses her words to paint the picture of that life. Melissa Stephenson wanted to escape the stillness of her world and see beyond Indiana, and what she was missing. She found cars to be the promise of a future beyond state lines. Amid broken marriage, broken promises and death, the author takes you on a journey driving into another perspective. This book tells the tale of old cars, inheriting old cars, and having cars take you to new worlds that freshen the outlook on life.

Driven is a powerful story of healing from the death of a sibling, and what it is like to move forward in the world.

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for a pre-publication ebook in exchange for an honest review.

[M.L. Rio]

DNF

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I received a free advance reader copy of Driven via Netgalley in return for an honest review. This is an abbreviation of my complete review which can be found on my blog.)

When we think of heartbreak, most of us think of losing a romantic love. Yet the pain of losing a loved one to death is every bit as devastating – if not moreso—than the heartbreak of a lost romantic love. Both losses can launch us into a deep spiraling grief that consumes us, body, mind and soul. Melissa Stephenson vividly brings that raw emotional pain to her writing. The death of her brother Matthew is one of the primary storylines running through Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back. She describes the horrid experience all of us go through in the early days of a loss, waking from a sleep to remember that a loved one has died and our world is no longer what it was: “It’s a vicious cycle: the forgetting, the waking, and the fresh wave of grief and nausea that crash over me as I remember.” As her deep grief continues Stephenson describes the ensuing depression: “My life feels like roadkill, a mess beyond fixing, only my brain won’t stop thinking any more than I could talk my heart out of beating. I live because my body does, a black hole incarnate.”

After the immediate task of dealing with her brother's limited estate, Stephenson continues on her journey of grief. At this point, her book begins to be filled with asides which are short paragraphs, always beginning with the phrase “consider this.” In these, we see Stephenson’s internal negotiations with the universe. She creates alternate stories as she wishfully tries to change what happened. All of us have episodes of the “the what-ifs” when something goes wrong. We play out hypothetical situations, wondering if there's anything different that could have changed this outcome we don't want to be true. As most of us know, the five stages of grief aren’t linear, and through these questioning "consider this" asides, Stephenson shares her process of coming to terms with the reality of her brother’s death as well as many other difficult situations in her life.

As a unique way of framing the events of Driven, Stephenson discusses the cars in her life as she grows up and launches into adulthood. Her use of the automotive details throughout her life works incredibly well as she ties together the ways her cars take her through the journey of life. Her memories of cars start in her childhood where Stephenson had the unconditional love of a devoted mother who was nonetheless addicted to nicotine and eventually alcohol. Her father was a frequently absent workaholic. Her beloved brother Matthew often pushed her away as she desperately sought his attention and love when they were children. Stephenson sometimes blamed herself for this as a child because her family taught her “I had big feelings, and they drove away those I loved.” Yet the reality was that Stephenson’s personal strength was more than those around her knew how to accommodate as they faced their own demons and desires.

Overall, Driven is a powerful memoir that probes themes of growing up in the Midwest, dysfunctional family dynamics, substance addiction, love, marriage, death, relationships, personal growth, and as the title implies, road trips and cars. From the moment I picked it up, I was addicted because of Stephenson’s fluid and descriptive writing. When I finished, I felt empty and lost because there were no more pages to turn. I wanted more. Hopefully Stephenson’s next work will be published sooner rather than later.

©2018 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., GreenHeartGuidance.com

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few things about this book bothered me from the start- the unapologetic confederate flag license plates to start in the intro... but then calling the Chinese foot binding practice Japanese, totally different culture and country! and a couple chapters later stating she sold a car with a cardboard love letter of features including that it was a manual, then the next few pages saying she bought and drove her first car with a clutch after selling her beloved manual... manual transmissions tend to have clutches... that was confusing, or just bad time-lining- several instances of editors oversight or total lack of care bothered me. A lot of things I wanted to like. But so many things felt too harsh and rough, like the rough editing.

[Maryann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this memoir for its unique structure and beautiful, uncomplicated writing. Melissa Stephenson doesn't just tell us about grieving her brother's death, she uses all the cars her family ever had to show us their hopes, dreams and struggles. In the end you don't get the sense that she's overcome the experience, but that she has learned from it.

[S P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this memoir. The language was shimmery, yet lean and precise. The voice was strong, and above all, there was hope--a momentum toward vitality -- in a book that deals graciously with hard topics such as grief, suicide, and alcoholism. I can't wait to read what's next from her.

[Jane]

I knew Melissa for a little while in the mid to late 2000‘s. We were neighbors, and our sons went to the same sweet daycare. I didn’t know her story at all though. My favorite parts were the interludes where she said “imagine this” and made up an alternate story.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over the course of a weekend; it was that good. I just read. And I loved it. It talks about family, and history, and the various lenses through which we view events and our own histories and all the ways in which our lives are build by events and then we look back and those events change depending on our perspective, and we learn and we grow and we look again. It's about growth. It's about grief. It's about how grief draws on your heart indelibly and changes you more than any tattoo ever could. And it's about tattoos. And rigs. And the journeys we take in vehicles, and with vehicles, and because of vehicles. And mostly it's about memory and love and family and how we get to where we are and what the journey looks like from there.
I just loved it.

[Lennlee Keep · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t usually write reviews, mostly because I’m worried I’m going to come off as simplistic or foolish. But I love this book. Stephenson has written a story about family, love and addiction. Driven is the story of grief and and saying goodbye to someone who has already left 100 times before

I love this book

[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoirs fascinate me. I'm always amazed that people have that much to say about their own lives or that they can remember what happened ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty years ago. This story begins when the author is a kid and follows her relationship with her troubled brother. The structure is clever, because it follows the sequence of the family's cars over the years, vehicles that had a long-lasting impression. Well-written and fast-paced, it's an excellent read.

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early on in this memoir, Melissa Stephenson describes how her state trooper grandfather was "reduced to a stain on the highway", when a car hit him while he was helping a stranded elderly woman. Personally, I thought that was a very distasteful way of putting it, and there is unfortunately much distastefulness in this story. (As well as painfully obvious proof the author has a MFA in fiction.) Actually, there's downright vulgarity where Ms. Stephenson's brother is concerned. And the more vulgar his stories and actions were, the more amused she seemed to be. Yet the reader is suppose to believe he was a much desired presence at family events, and is suppose to feel devastation when he kills himself. Well, individuals with no limits often have no limits, particularly when they are drunk and depressed. Of course, some are now screaming how judgmental, the poor guy shot himself in the head. But it's often a continuous lack of judgment that helps individuals sink so low.

This is not to suggest that Ms. Stephenson was in any way responsible for her brother's death; because she was not; he was the one fully responsible for it. It's just to say it is hard to get fully into this suicide story, to feel her overwhelming sadness about his death; particularly when she was not really close to him as a child, and appeared to rarely see him as an adult. Melissa Stephenson was highly motivated and ambitious as a child, and drove away from Indiana as soon and as fast as she could. Her older brother seemed to sorely lack ambition and motivation, regardless of how often his parents tried to steer him in the right direction, and pay for further education and training. Why was that? The author never really tries to explain or explore that matter. Part of the story seems to be missing. But maybe all the car talk will leave most readers feeling fulfilled.

P.S. It's interesting to note the dreams the author had about her brother after his death. She reacts to him in those "visitation" dreams in the exact opposite way most individuals react to beloved deceased relatives they encounter in their dreams.

(Note: I received a free ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Zachary Houle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve only owned one driveable car in my life: possibly a Tonka. It was a little race car I nicknamed the “88 car” because it had a gigantic 88 stickered on the side. It was my training wheels to a real bicycle, as it was something you could pedal, and I suppose it was a sort of consolation prize for me from my parents as I really wanted a Big Wheel after seeing kids driving those around in Toronto apartment building complex parking lot when I grew up in that city until I was three years old. When we moved to the quiet Wilno, Ontario, in a rented red and white vinyl siding house, I got the car. I guess you could say it offered freedom for me, as much as I wanted something else instead, raring it down the porch and treating the steps leading to the street as an off ramp to the four-way highway-like freedom of the cul-de-sac where we lived. (Our house was at the very end of the street, not in the middle like in some Madness song.) One day, I became too big for the car — I could no longer fit — so it got handed down to my sister. The end.

Sure, I got to borrow my parent’s real car — an ’86 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra — when I got to being of age to drive, but it wasn’t really the same thing as having a car of your own, toy or not. As Melissa Stephenson’s biography of her brother that also works as a personal memoir Driven asserts, we are defined by the types of cars we drive and they serve as handy metaphors for the lives that we live. In Stephenson’s hands, it is a sad tale. Her brother, Matthew, commits suicide at the age of 29 in Georgia — something we more or less know from the outset of the book, so that’s no spoiler — and was the proud owner of an original Ford F-150, a truck possibly bigger than the lives that would ultimately be attached to it. However, it was a vehicle that needed care, and, as this biography-memoir points out, it probably got more care than its owners did.

Read the rest here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melissa Stephenson knows how to craft words. There were many times I enjoyed the sentences and passages in this autobiography. I enjoyed her premise of the cars and how these where ways to explore the road. However that premise wasn't sustained throughout the entirety of the book.

This is a reflection on the relationship of Stephenson's brother, her life. Her brother, Matt was not exactly the happiest or most stable person. Yet we don't find out too much about his life except tattoos and some girlfriends. Perhaps it's because his sister always felt on the outside of his life, loving him more than he loved her. He was distant to her, his family, perhaps to everyone.

This book is an eulogy to her brother. A reckoning of their relationship. And a bit about the cars that took place in her family and her life. It sounds incongruous as I describe it and it was a bit like that in the book, although not jarring. I wished for more consistency with the automobiles that seemed to play this huge part in her life, her desire for travel and constant motion. Yet that was lacking; and it meant the book needed more direction.

I did enjoy this book. I got through it quickly, yet it felt like it needed just a little more cohesion. Despite that it is a satisfying read.

Many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for an advance electronic review copy of the book.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars Because Melissa grew up in the Midwest around the same time as I did, (minus a few years), I felt like she could have easily been a classmate of mine, living through the seasons of childhood, preteen, and full blown adolescents. Her memoir captures the different roles she played in life as a daughter, sister, and eventual wife and mother. But the heaviest emphasis is on her relationship with her older brother, Matthew. Matthew’s problems emerge when he is a teenager and persist for the rest of his life. Their lives go off in separate directions but he always remains close to her heart. His life choices are difficult for her to understand at first and she just wants more for him than he wants for himself. Yet, at times, she can empathize with the angst and torment that his mind seems so riddled with. One of the most valuable pieces of this memoir is her transparency in how she handles his death and the true reality that sets in when she accepts that he is gone. From that aspect, Melissa’s writing helps define the brother-sister relationship in such a heart-warming, yet heart wrenching way.

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Driven is a memoir centered around Stephenson's family's cars and her love of travel. Stephens has wanderlust in her blood and once she escapes from the flat lands of Indiana she goes coast to coast and everywhere in between. The story is also about her relationship with her older brother, all their problems, and his death. Driven is a smooth narrative, down an open road that full of speed bumps. It's also a sad story about a life so full of potential and then meaninglessly squandered without purpose or direction and Stephensons reckoning with the aftermath. Thanks to Edelweiss for the advance copy.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just received this book, and read it in 1 day. I really liked it. I loved how Melissa added so many of her memories from the 70s which brought back memories for me, as we are from the same era.
I enjoyed reading about her many cars that the family went through, as we also had many cars too.
The only things that I did not like were the details of her brothers death scattered through the book, and the chapter dedicated to the funeral and preparations. I just skipped over these parts and enjoyed the rest of the book.

I received this ARC through Goodreads and I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it.
Thanks

[Bamboozlepig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fast read for me, mostly because in the second half, I pretty much skimmed. Stephenson has a solid writing style that sometimes ventures into the hard-boiled noir style. I was more into the part about her growing up and remembered so many of the pop culture references, not to mention the cars. I felt bad that her brother killed himself and she and her family were struggling to cope with his loss. But it was after the suicide section that the storytelling nosedived a bit and I can't quite put my finger on what it was that didn't work for me in that area. Still, Stephenson is a decent writer and I'd read future books by her.

[Steve Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another memoir, coming close on the heels of finishing "Educated." This is not up to that standard - a very high standard, mind you - but it was well worth the time. I connected with some of the car connections, siblings, and the struggles with mental health. It is real and widely impactful on a family. Like author Melissa Stephenson, I love driving cars. And my memories are closely connected with the cars I have owned (Jeep CJ-7, Audi, and later Volvo wagons) that have taken me all across the country. I long to go places and often spend that time driving thinking about life, the future, the what-ifs. Stephenson's reflections on life, including many "what if" scenarios, connected with me.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm an avid reader of memoir and I believe that a writer needn't have lived through a Very Big Deal Problem Life in order to write a compelling memoir. "Driven" has an interesting story. Two kids in the same family take different paths, one of those leads to relative success, the other to suicide. Despite the author connecting the dots of her brother's death to his life, her life, her parents, etc., something is missing for me. It ends up reading like a collection of anecdotal stories, exactly the sort of thing she'd been writing throughout school. The vehicle motif as an organizing idea is cool, but it isn't magic and didn't make this an organic narrative.

[Shelly Rarick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptionally written book but it is not a happy book. I could have written parts of this book myself which makes it all the more sadder for me. Expect a very realistic portrayal of what it is like to deal with family members in crisis due to depression and addiction (both drug and alcohol) and the process of grief. While the chapters are written around the cars, they really only serve as metaphors for where the author was in life during that moment, so do not think you need to be interested in cars to read this book.

[Richda Mcnutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephenson definitely has a talent for writing. And imagination - fashioning this memoir around the different vehicles in her life was an interesting concept. And whether she's describing her relationships with these cars or the relationship with her brother, the words flow in a very natural way. Her writing on grief after the death of her brother is gripping, unflowery yet beautifully phrased. Her grief abrades the reader, leaving a rawness on the skin. One of the most memorable sentences for me was, "Please find me where you know I need to be," a lovely and meaningful prayer.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back / Melissa Stephenson. Stephenson is a Missoula author who writes well of her Indiana upbringing by her young parents and of her brother, whom she adored. It is also an unsparing account of Matthew and Melissa’s young adult years. The book certainly contributed to my understanding of the roles alcohol and drugs take on in lives—and why. Love and loyalty also “matter.” The book is organized around the vehicles she has driven and treasured. The “ending” is real and heartening. I liked the book.

[Daniel Lurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is comprised in an interesting way that I hadn't come across before--essays structured by vehicles that Stephenson has owned (or that her family has owned) and other means of transportation. She uses vehicles as rhetorical catalysts, to break down the years of her life, to grapple with staggering grief-filled moments, like the suicide of her brother, deterioration of her parents, divorce from her husband, and raising her children as a single mother. Grief is the common theme and Stephenson navigates it with honest, raw, and poignant prose. I would highly recommend this memoir.

[Karendale2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fast read. Melissa Stephenson is a very good writer. The book circled around the loss of her brother and the dysfunction of the family. I didn’t find it depressing though I am sure some may find it so. It’s ultimately a story about grief and moving forward to a place of understanding and hope. And it revolves around the ownership of certain makes and models of automobiles and vans. It was very entertaining in that respect.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melissa’s ability to articulate her own human experience is masterful. Her depiction of things is so well rounded, truthful, insightful, smart, that you have no choice but have a simultaneous love affair with the murky shades of gray in your own life experience. This memoir is filled with the brave grit to look life’s hardest in the eye, along with an ever saturation of generosity and warmth. She is a writer to keep an eye on in the future.

[Teresa Mankin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the good fortune to be in Portland the night Melissa read from her book.at Powell's. I got a signed copy and bonded with a fellow single mom Hoosier superwoman.
The book is funny and sad and real life. Her story told from the vantage of the vehicles associated with that time in her life was unique and relatable. This book is all about the resilient human spirit and doing the best with what you have. Highly recommend!!

[Emily Cornell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal. And beautiful. Stephenson's journey through griefs big and small is a dense but easy-to-read layer cake of metaphor, meta observation and masterful storytelling. As a student trying to hone my own craft around memoir and the transmission of memory, I found the book's structure to be a fascinating way to weave together all the pieces of love and heartbreak. My only wish upon finishing was the desire to talk about it with another reader.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a memoir, but more of a conversational recollection and reflection on life growing up in the Midwest. It’s full of quirky local things that really bug me about this part of the country (like the use of a confederate flag!!!) as well as the things that make many people in the Midwest really special. Very touching story of a real life and it’s imperfections. Thank you to the author’s dad for recommending this to me! I really enjoyed it.