Driving with Dead People

Driving with Dead People
by Monica Holloway

Driving with Dead People
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Book Summary Information

Author: Monica Holloway
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-03-06
ISBN: 143762023X
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment

Book Reviews of Driving with Dead People

Book Review: Coming Out Alive
Summary: 4 Stars

Holloway writes about her violent family life she experienced as she was growing up. With witty prose, she manages to lighten the tone of a biography centred around an abusive father and seemingly indifferent mother. She reveals a profound fascination with death and gets to drive with dead people.

As Monica gets older, she discovers some deep dark secrets her dysfunctional family harbour and is left to try and piece some of the shattered lives back together without the support of her immediate family.

Not my normal non-fiction reading, but I purchased this because the basic description I had read seemed interesting. It was definitely worth the read and in this case, it is shameful to say that sometimes the truth can make for better reading than fiction. Holloway shows strength of character and fortitude that no child or adult should have to show.

Perhaps Holloway's account of abuse in all forms may assist someone else.

Summary of Driving with Dead People

Small wonder that, at nine years old, Monica Holloway develops a fascination with the local funeral home. With a father who drives his Ford pickup with a Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he sees an accident, and whose home movies feature more footage of disasters than of his children, Monica is primed to become a morbid child.

Yet in spite of her father's bouts of violence and abuse, her mother's selfishness and prim denial, and her siblings' personal battles and betrayals, Monica never succumbs to despair. Instead, she forges her own way, thriving at school and becoming fast friends with Julie Kilner, whose father is the town mortician.

She and Julie prefer the casket showroom, where they take turns lying in their favorite coffins, to the parks and grassy backyards in her hometown of Elk Grove, Ohio. In time, Monica and Julie get a job driving the company hearse to pick up bodies at the airport, yet even Monica's growing independence can't protect her from her parents' irresponsibility, and from the feeling that she simply does not deserve to be safe. Little does she know, as she finally strikes out on her own, that her parents' biggest betrayal has yet to be revealed.

Throughout this remarkable memoir of her dysfunctional, eccentric, and wholly unforgettable family, Monica Holloway's prose shines with humor, clear-eyed grace, and an uncommon sense of resilience. Driving with Dead People is an extraordinary real-life tale with a wonderfully observant and resourceful heroine.

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