Customer Reviews

Invisible Driving

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I saw this book mentioned several times while reading other reviews on Amazon. There were a lot of positive responses, so I took a chance. Unfortunately the book is poorly written and difficult to read. The author tries too hard to make his writing style unique and quirky; as a result the story suffers. It might be interesting enough to flip through in a car wreck kind of way, but it's not for serious reading.

On a side note, I just discovered that the author floods the comments of other book reviews with glowing suggestions of his own book. Yet another reason not to always trust the star reviews on Amazon. I suspect that most of these 5 & 4 star reviews are posted by the author himself. (or friends and family.) You can clearly see that many of them have only made one review and have been inactived for a long period of time.

Reading Invisible Driving, as I now have several times, I can't help wondering what sort of cab driver Alistair McHarg would be, and I don't guess I'd want to find out (though I'm sure it would be amusing). But I'll say this: he's unparalleled as a tour guide through the mess one's mind can become when the science experiment we call the brain goes just a little off spec.

I read much of this book in horror. And much of it in fits of laughter. And much of it in mute admiration at the courage McHarg must have had to summon to recall, and relive in order to recreate and confront the prolonged misery of the manic depressive rollercoaster ride. Sometimes, I felt all those at once.

It's been my blessing as well as, I suppose, my curse to have had as close friends many brilliant, creative, but ultimately self-destructive people. And I've lost too many of them far too soon. That McHarg has been able to survive is in itself one of his great personal triumphs. That we readers can become the lucky beneficiaries of his wonderfully told story is a triumph we can proudly share with him.

Others will make the inevitable comparisons to help you relate to what you may be in store for when you read Invisible Driving. Yes, it's got the all of the elements of suspense and character and story and insight and humor that we prize in our entertainment. All of which is to say, it's a good read--no it's better than that, lifted by a skill in narration and a fluency in language that puts McHarg in the company of Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett. But this book was destined for greatness the day he decided to peel himself up off the ocean floor and write it. In a literary sea swimming with too many opportunistic and ravenous sharks, this book is a beacon, flashing madly, but reliably, to help us find our way back through the mind's storms and, at last, to safe harbor. On my wish list before it was even written, it is among the most optimistic works of literature and memoir that I have ever read.

Yikes! Even if you experience ups and downs well within a standard deviation of the center, this book will scare the zaparoopie out of you. It will also make you laugh out loud - a LOT!

McHarg has achieved the nearly impossible task of describing mental illness with mere words - but what words! He takes you into the eye of the manic hurricane and gives you the lightning, thunder and the sunshine all at once with extended stream of conscious word play that some how makes sense. Not only does he invent words that seem to be exactly right, he turns out phrases of brilliance by the dozen - "exquisite legs as long as a sentence from Faulkner," "cheese not squarely on the cracker," "Her mode of dress was peasant under glass."

Behind it all is a great story which, as others have suggested, would make a great film - all the elements of a box-office smash and an important message as well.

When it's reissued, I think readers would like to see an afterward of sorts. How are things now? Is it still sitting on your shoulder? How are things with Paula, the daughter that was enough to make you face the problem at last?

This is a wonderful and imprtant read!

Invisible driving takes you on a ride, a ride full of clutch popping drag races that disintigrate into backwards down hill no hands free for alls. McHarg's use of language echoes more Coltrane then Hemingway. Scat like, he inserts nonsense words that become sense, thereby illuminating the mind of the manic. You finish the book with a few new adjectives with which you can pepper your daily diatribes, oh and an entirely new picture of the crippling effects of manic depression.

For those afflicted with bipolar disorder, for those suffering along with them (or because of them), for anyone wanting to help them, professionally or personally, this is the book for you! A dizzying account of the roller coaster ride of manic depression, the book is written like the rises and falls of the disorder itself. It is all at once a brilliant spotlight that exposes the manic thinking, rationalizations, and erratic behavior that is bipolar disorder, as well as a thoughtful retrospective of the disease by a survivor in recovery. At the same time exhilarating, terrifying, and entertaining, McHarg is, above all, a writer, with a poet's sensibilities, using metaphor, symbolism, and playful twists of language to convey a depth of understanding rarely seen and a depth of description rarely achieved. The result is that the reader not only lives the experience of McHarg in the throes of his illness, but also arrives at an almost clinical understanding of the illness, its impact on life decisions and relationships, and the long road back through recovery. McHarg exposes, with courage, humor, and masterful language, the naked and hungry ego of mania, the terrifying yawn of depression that lies underneath, and the bitter sweet taste of recovery and redemption. Along with Vonnegut's Eden Express, Invisible Driving should be required reading in Medical Schools and Clinical Psychology Programs.

How rare for a book to lend itself as a clear lense to such a wide range of readers' perspectives. Who's sight can be focused through Mr. McHarg's gently brutal words? The therapist desperately trying to grasp the confounding world of the "distrubed individual" sitting across from her...the parent at a loss for the "stranger" invading their child...the child searching for some sense in mom or dad's senselessness...the "average joe" deluded into thinking mental illness is reserved for those less than "average joe"ish...and perhapse most importantly, the suffering "bi-polar bear" himself, toes cramped trying to keep one splinter of a foot in "reality". Remarkably this book shares itself equally. Each reader is rhythmically lulled into the belief that it was with them in mind that Mr. McHarg wrote, they were the inspiration for his spreading himself raw on the page. It is hard to exit the ride without a sense of gratitude, compassion and humility in the face of the human condition known as "being human". What a gift.

If you can imagine John Irving, Thomas Harris and James Thurber all rolled into one you probably have a good picture of Alistair McHarg's "Invisible Driving". How a book can be a frightening page turner and uproariously funny ay the same time is beyond me. For anyone with a passing acqaintance with bi-polar syndrome this is a serious book that is seriously funny. I sat down and read it cover to cover. Can't wait for the next one.

Magicians Penn and Teller revel in showing their audience the reality behind the illusion. One suspects that Alistair McHarg is a big fan of that cynical but entertaining Vegas duo. By his own admission he spent an unhealthy portion of his adult life creating his own illusion, a seemingly stable life full of the usual props - home, family, career - until a personal crisis and subsequent series of escapades sent his dutifully arranged stage set crashing down around him. Now, with the publication of Invisible Driving, McHarg reveals the personal truths behind the illusion, and in so doing produces a work of art brimming with horror, humor, pathos and quite often dazzling literary pyrotechnics.

Viewers of this memoir - that's right, he said viewers, not readers - are treated to some first class sleight of pen. Even the liner notes offer up a bit of legerdemain, positioning the book as a trip to "the foreign world of manic depression." Yes, and of course that Huckleberry Finn book was all about a ride on a raft. Which certainly is not to suggest that Invisible Driving belongs on the high shelf with (drum flourish) The Greatest American Novel of the Nineteenth Century - apples and oranges, after all - but it is to say that much more is offered than a back-of-the-book blurb can possibly convey. Invisible Driving serves up musical and literary references like hors d'oeuvres at a gathering of society swells, tosses out puns like beads at a Mardi Gras parade, and proffers cultural commentary remindful of Jon Stewart on a good night. As the performance unfolds, one sees a touch of Céline here, a hint of Burgess over there, and just around the corner, why, it sounds like a bit of Monty Python.

As a result, the story is the least of the considerations when it comes to Invisible Driving. But for the sake of explication, here it is: The book chronicles in alternating chapters (and painstaking detail) McHarg's fevered thoughts and frenetic activities as he spins off into a manic episode following the aforementioned crisis. The chapters in between offer his backstory and his after-the-fact observations on the nature of manic depression in general and the hows and whys of his own manifestation in particular.

As he spirals downward at ever increasing speed, synapses firing chemical bursts in all directions like a bunch of drunken gunslingers, his overbearing sense of righteousness and self importance begins to overwhelm both him and us. He strides the nighttime streets of the city, his manic rantings sometimes brilliant, sometimes ridiculous, and oftentimes both. Convinced beyond question of his own superiority and invulnerability, he goes off again and again at injustices both real and imagined. No target is safe, no matter how innocuous or innocent. At one point he encounters a ragged homeless man - who, he notes is "not missing any arms or legs" and is therefore "whole" - begging on the street. With Limbaugh-like viciousness McHarg confronts the annoyance: "Get a job, you sack a [bleep]," he hisses, "you're cluttering up my sidewalk." The jarring irony and the black-as-pitch humor are so stark it hurts. Which one of these vagabonds deserves the greater share of pity?

And yet the more unlikable this madman becomes, the more we begin to root for him. The illusion he strives to pull off with his false bravado and insufferable bluster can't hide the perception that although he himself is not whole, he is capable of putting himself together and achieving wholeness. The revelation comes not so much through events as through the power and the poetry of description. We learn, for example, that the failure of his marriage was inevitable not because of his disease, but because the disease prompted him subconsciously to quell his inner fears through pursuit of convention. He was "driven into marriage more by terror than by moonlight," he humbly admits. We learn, too, that he can look ruefully at the remains of his psyche toward the end of his manic episode, when his self confidence - his "flair and panache" - are no more than "the tattered edges of a flag too long at sea." Most of all we learn to root for this most imperfect of creatures - and therefore most human of creatures - in the heartbreaking passages dealing with his feelings toward his young daughter. In the midst of his darkest moment, a phone conversation with her shows him a pathway to redemption. Says he, simply: "That fragile, tiny voice was a siren song I couldn't resist."

Catch this show as soon as you can. For the glittering wordplay, yes. But also because the magical accomplishment of Invisible Driving is that it proves disease is not destiny, and that hope - though it sometimes hurts more than despair, as McHarg wryly notes - is always there behind the curtain, waiting to reveal itself, if only we can make ourselves look for it.

Wow! I have never read a better book in my entire life. Seriously, you have to buy this book. I sat down and read it cover to cover. Granted, I didn't have to pay for my copy, and, had I needed to pay for it, I can't really say what I would have thought. But, you should pay for it, it is possibly the best book ever written. (But, like I said, I didn't have to pay for it.) Either way, if you want to read a really great book you should go ahead and purchase this one right now.

When I opened this book, Alistair McHarg was jogging by me and grabbed my hand. He held it tightly and I jogged next to him and he began telling me a story. Soon, the pace quickened to a run. I tried to keep up as the pace quickened further to a frenzied sprint, yet he kept a firm grip on my hand. His story was tragic but hilarious. I realized that the grip on my hand was for two reasons. First, to make sure i didn't miss a thing- pay attention- you won't be disappointed. And second, to somehow make sure i empathized with his character, which i somehow (well, thanks to him), did. This book puts you on Space Mountain- the first (I think) rollercoaster with no lights. It is a first hand testimony of a manic depressive man- something i never contemplated, but like visiting a fortune teller, found myself pausing (with the limited pause time you have in this book) and....thinking for a second, turning my head...and getting it (?!) at times. Perhaps the most impressive part of this work is in the final chapters...he ties the journey together with the economy of a poet and still, while you feel like the run has abruptly ended and you are sitting face-to-face at a fold-up card table with a swinging light bulb overhead (catching your breath) he deconstructs it and makes you shake your head and laugh. Again. That's a talent.