Plato's Garage [Hardcover]

Rob Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0312205694 | ISBN-13: 978-0312205690 | Edition: 1st

In a collection of essays that are often personal, occasionally journalistic, and frequently meditative, Rob Campbell takes a look at the world from a different persepctive - through the reflective lens of the automobile in our car-obsessed culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The latest entry in the crowded memoir race is autobiography as auto-biography. In a series of essays about car people and car culture, gay journalist and automotive aficionado Campbell cleverly interprets his own life story as a series of relationships between man and machine. He begins with an anatomy of the cruising rituals, gay and straight, in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif., which he juxtaposes with those in his chosen home, arguably the world car capital, Los Angeles. There, he confronts a culture of people who are inseparable from their pink Corvettes and vintage Caddies, and for whom a car is a "flamboyant calling card." Whether describing car styles or hairstyles, Campbell has an eye for detail and an ability to find meaning in unlikely places. Every ride he takes becomes a rite of passage, be it a blindfolded race through Paris or a mute trip in a computer-navigated Toyota in Kyoto. The characters he meets along his journey are willfully quirky and wittily portrayed, particularly a transsexual who performs operations on cars that are as radical as what has been done to her body. Like so many who live their lives in a state of perpetual motion, Campbell heads toward a nervous breakdown, although he at first ignores the signs. He manages the necessary repairs with the help of a little philosophizing that makes for less engaging reading (the garage in the book's title is a transposition of Plato's metaphorical cave). Still, when his writing stays on the ground, it offers a smooth ride.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Newcomer Campbell serves as guide to quirky travels among the auto-obsessed. As a youth in Bakersfield, California, Campbell discovered the much-touted American symbiosis between man and driving machine. Even before he got behind the wheel of his first Pinto, Campbell was cruising the gay strips as a ``Brash Underaged Kid,'' learning the ropes of car life, shaping a persona, chafing with impatience. Cruising was ``a self-expression in which the automobile was an integral and active element,'' and your wheels a symbol that marked you one way or another: as the recipient of a thrown egg, a bashing with a bat, or a sexual advance. Campbell thinks of his car, then and now, not just as a means to self- actualization but as a love object itself, whether fitted with ``lustrous contours and flirty fins,'' or voluptuous but tough, built for speed, and bigger than you are.'' He finds cars wonderfully grounding as he contends with an HIV-positive diagnosis and a nervous breakdown. They give him a purpose in his journeys at the ragged edge, keeping his curiosity with life piqued, offering adventures outside the security of his cavethe quotidianto sample the dangers of the outside world. His car, like his body, ``didn't have to be perfect to get me where I was going,'' and with enough care it could give him the sturdiness to withstand his ``reckless emotional course.'' As for the car people he meets: Where else would one find the Breadwoman, who wears a big loaf over her head and chants whale music via karmic exchange with her art-car? The automobile gives you a way to see the world, Campbells essays suggest, with standards and ethics that transcend make and year and help to get you through hard times. Intriguing, but for those not enslaved to the car: a strange trip indeed. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312205694
• ISBN-13: 978-0312205690
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,996,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You've never read anything like this., January 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Plato's Garage (Hardcover)

I am not a big reader, so the agent of this book told me to start with a brief section on page 134 (called "Breakdown #2). I was blown away. Campbell, the author, is HIV-positive, but totally enlightened and enlightening. He's hilarious, but also warm and honest and accepting. MUST READ for anyone HIV-pos or anyone who knows anyone HIV-pos.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual, intelligent, emotional, May 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Plato's Garage (Hardcover)

A lovely book that does a satisfying job of blurring the lines between memoir, journalism, and quirky meditation. Expresses the ineluctable emotion we all feel for our cars, past and present that we sometimes mistake for materialism.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, highly personal, enlightening, June 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Plato's Garage (Hardcover)

For the non-car obsessed a facinating, introspective journey. For those who's cars are a bodily extension, a must-read. The first chapter, 'Sun, Fun, Stay, Play' really captures all the searing pain of growing up in Bakersfield, inside and outside of your cruising car.