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The Volvo Story aka Courting Eliza
Apparently I haven't mentioned this in a long time and most people don't know what I'm talking about.
This is a novel that is about one third done. And which, I promise, I will finish.
It's about a woman who picks up and moves (drives) from New Jersey to a small island in Puget Sound after a trauma that makes it impossible for her to carry on her old life. It's about her relationship with her father, who is nearing the end of his life, about a stuffed and moth eaten bear, about friendship and trust.
Here are the opening paragraphs:
---------------------------------------------------- all rights reservd
Part I
When someone asks what it means
to die for love, point:
Here.
Chapter 1.
For a few months now, Kate Buongiovanni has been wooing a car
thief.
Nobody would think it of her. Kate strikes most people as a woman of more persistence than daring; subdued by good fortune,all her sharp edges worn away by contentment. Happily married,
successful in a business she loves, money enough to buy what she
likes: Mephisto walking shoes, Peruvian sweaters, Dakota pottery;
her kitchen walls, hand stenciled, are hung with antique copper
molds in the shape of roosters, half moons, leaping fish. She
pays handsomely for housecleaning and ironing. A boy from down
the street mows the lawn, stacks the firewood; they have an accountant, a broker, an attorney. She is on a first name basis with the fund raisers at Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International, CASA.
And yet Kate contemplates the larcenous heart. She puts a great
deal of thought into attracting a car thief: on a Friday afternoon
she drives into downtown Trenton and leaves the car on a side
street, gift-wrapped children's books (Where the Wild Things
Are; Curious George; The Borrowers) piled on the driver's
seat. Unlocked. The window rolled down a few inches.
The books disappear along with the tire gauge and a half pack
of mints, but the car is waiting for her when she comes back.
On her next solo trip (The Phantom Tollbooth; Half Magic; Harriet
the Spy) Kate ties a hank of red yarn to the key in the ignition,
but even such a bold invitation goes unanswered. It seems that
nobody is desperate enough to take on this crate of a car, this
thirty year old, mustard-colored Volvo with a temperamental clutch
and three hundred thousand miles.
Under other circumstances she would talk to Mike about this
challenge, but the fact is this: her husband loves this monument
to automotive engineering as another man might love a senile and
smelly dog, and Kate loves her husband.
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March 17, 2006 03:07 PM
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Comments
Your charcter always have such interesting names. Do you collect interesting last names?
Posted by: kel at March 17, 2006 03:48 PM
Yes, I do collect names. Most novelists do, it goes along with the territory.
Just last week I saw a clerk with the name tag: Rex King. I keep thinking about that name.
Posted by: Rosina Lippi at March 17, 2006 05:03 PM
Ok, I'm hooked already. Can't wait to read more.
Posted by: melissa g at March 17, 2006 05:27 PM
I remembered this story, and wondered if it was somehow incorporated into Tied To The Tracks. I'm very interested in reading Kate's story; as the wife of a man who collects classic cars, running or otherwise, I can identify, to a point.
Posted by: Rachel at March 17, 2006 05:32 PM