Invisible Driving (Paperback)

~ Alistair McHarg (Author)
Key Phrases: pilot car, Invisible Driving, Four Seasons, James Brown (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Invisible Driving is a memoir of Manic Depression that takes readers inside the terrors, thrills, and triumphs of coming to terms with this debilitating and misunderstood mental illness. The manic narrator's voice vividly recreates the feelings and sensations of mania, offering an unprecedented look at this fascinating and bizarre state of being. While behavior and thought illuminate the condition of mania, it is the protagonist's language itself that most viscerally conveys what it feels like to be trapped inside a manic 'high.'

The voice of the recovered narrator provides context, reliability, and credibility. Where the manic narrator is relentlessly entertaining and delusional, the recovered narrator is tough minded, concise, and determined to reveal the truth, no matter how painful. With a cold eye he examines the forces that shaped him in order to shed light on the psychological architecture driving the episode. The interplay between these two perspectives underscores the bipolar nature of Manic Depression; the greatest personal challenge is reconciling them. Ultimately, the narrator must confront his own worst nightmare and in doing so gain character, insight, and acceptance.

About the Author

Alistair McHarg spent his early years in Edinburgh and Amsterdam, moving to Philadelphia with his father, Ian, and mother, Pauline, at age six. He attended Germantown Friends School, Haverford College, and the University of Louisville. Convinced at an early age that fate had chosen writing as his calling, he followed a characteristically slow and circuitous path. McHarg has found employment as deck hand on a Norwegian tramp freighter touring South America, Bureau of Land Management Emergency Fire Fighter in Alaska, guide at a Canadian wilderness survival camp, truck driver crisscrossing Colorado’s continental divide, and inner city cabbie. Alistair has been arranging words on paper for a living since 1983. He is the author of three novels, a memoir, innumerable poems, hundreds of book, film, and music reviews, and an ever growing catalog of cartoons.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (January 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419654470
• ISBN-13: 978-1419654473
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,112,666 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invisible Passenger, January 29, 2007

By	Nancy A. Biddle - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What a great book! I felt like I was sitting next to Alistair for the entire ride. It's hard to believe a book about such a serious problem will make you laugh out loud. But it does. This book is a great ride...even for someone who has no experience with manic depression. It's informative, funny and extremely entertaining. Thank heavens there are people like Alistair who are willing to leave their safety zone in order to inform and help others.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steal this BOOK!, June 6, 2007

By	F. Burnside "latenightmeanderings.blogspot.com" (Harveys Lake, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars divine absurdity, January 17, 2007

By	Daniel C. Endicott (PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.