Drive Like Hell : A Novel

From Publishers Weekly
Sixteen-year-old Luke Fulmer gets an education in misbehaving in Hudgens's raucous, Southern-fried bildungsroman. Luke hasn't had the greatest role models: his gorgeous mom, Claudia, needs her soaps like a wino needs his Thunderbird; his deadbeat dad, Lyndell, gets Luke involved in a B and E within 24 hours of seeing him for the first time in a decade; and his older brother, Nick, has done time twice for dealing drugs. It's Georgia in 1979, where Luke steals his brother's nickel bags for pocket money and his neighbor's car for errands—that is, until he smashes it into a tree. He loses his license, is forced to take a job as a busboy at the Holiday Inn, and has to move in with his brother—after all, isn't Nick walking the straight-and-narrow these days? Not hardly: he may have a landscaping business, a decent golf game and a band, Puss N' Booze, but he's also got a nice cocaine trade. Then Luke falls for a kleptomaniac, Nick lands in jail, and Luke has to play pick-up man in a drug drop. Hudgens's sharp dialogue sparkles throughout, and the cat-and-mouse confrontations between Luke, Nick and the local lawmen are particularly funny. Hudgens's takes on car racing, Claudia's dating, Luke's first love and Nick's attempts to teach Luke his dubious keys to success also shine in this shaggy but thoroughly enjoyable debut. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
When Luke Fulmer was just 10 years old, his father--an amateur stock-car driver--taught him to drive, saying, "It's best to learn young." Luke turns 16 in 1979 and finally gets his much-anticipated driver's license, but he immediately steals his neighbor's car and smashes it, so the local magistrate suspends his license. His overwhelmed mother, Claudia, has had enough: her oldest son, Nick, is already a two-time felon. She decides to spend the summer elsewhere, and she sends Luke to live with his brother Nick, hoping he'll learn from Nick's mistakes. So begins an endless summer during which Luke works pit crew for a stock car driver, dates a kleptomaniac, meets Jack Nicklaus (the golfer), and retrieves a duffel bag of cocaine for his brother. He also does a lot of illegal driving and learns that there is nowhere in the world he feels more in control than behind the wheel of a car. It's a good thing, too, because young Luke must keep it together while his family, his girlfriend, and maybe even his future are all taking a dive. Jerry Eberle
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Dallas Hudgens has done something I always thought was impossible: He's written the Great American Redneck Novel, a kind of bildungsroman of the urban South, complete with racing, wrestling, and lots and lots of drinking and smoking. In doing so, he has created a cast of characters so real to me I thought one of them was going to steal my car. This is a sharp, violent, hilarious, and endearing book. Like its narrator, the young Luke, it doesn't know how good it is." -- Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish

"The hard-driving, roughhouse, hell-for-leather energy of the prose; the tragedy and comedy of desperation; the keen sense of living on the razor's edge between hope and hopelessness; the fine pacing and humane treatment of these lives -- there is just so much to recommend this fine book and its brilliant author." -- Lewis Nordan, author of Boy with Loaded Gun

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Welcome to Georgia in the late 1970s, where ten-year-old Luke's otherwise neglectful father is teaching him to drive, a lesson so steeped in southern meaning that it eclipses his father's many failings. Freedom -- ethereal, unattainable, unimaginable freedom -- has just cleared the horizon for the first time in young Luke's life, and he likes what he sees.

Luke's family is a blessed mess. As Luke counts the days until his 16th birthday, his mother enters into a series of painful if poignant relationships with men, only to discover that her closest and most gratifying bond may be with the bottle. Luke runs a bit wild, driving without a license and attracting the notice of the local authorities -- a development that causes his world-weary mother to send Luke off to his drug-running brother, Nick, who is dedicated to seeing that Luke doesn't follow in his path.

But Luke's love for Nick sends him on a journey to catch up with him and his fellow fugitives before the police -- or, for that matter, murderous cocaine traffickers -- find them first. Along the way, Luke discovers love and nurtures a steadily blooming desire to live life on the right side of the law. Equal parts hilarious and touching, painful and joyous, Drive like Hell is a picture-perfect study of growing up restless and rootless in a southern town. (Spring 2005 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Luke Fulmer belongs behind the wheel of a car. Taught to drive at the age of ten by his father, Luke can do more damage with a stick and a clutch than most men can do with a bottle of whiskey and a lousy mood. He counts down the days to his sixteenth birthday when he can finally get his license. Unfortunately, the first thing he does with it is "borrow" his neighbor's car." When Luke is pulled over and found in possession of an air pistol, a ski mask, a stolen TV, and a bag of pot, the unforgiving local magistrate takes scissors to his license and vows to lock him up if he ever stands in front of her again. As Luke's mother explores bad relationships and the lure of vodka, Luke moves in with his older brother, Nick, an easygoing ex-con who wants to steer Luke onto the straight and narrow. In the gnarled, muggy summer that follows, Luke contends with a lovely kleptomaniac girlfriend, a duffel bag full of cocaine, and the realization that he must save his family from themselves even as he plots to beat a path out of town.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Sixteen-year-old Luke Fulmer gets an education in misbehaving in Hudgens's raucous, Southern-fried bildungsroman. Luke hasn't had the greatest role models: his gorgeous mom, Claudia, needs her soaps like a wino needs his Thunderbird; his deadbeat dad, Lyndell, gets Luke involved in a B and E within 24 hours of seeing him for the first time in a decade; and his older brother, Nick, has done time twice for dealing drugs. It's Georgia in 1979, where Luke steals his brother's nickel bags for pocket money and his neighbor's car for errands-that is, until he smashes it into a tree. He loses his license, is forced to take a job as a busboy at the Holiday Inn, and has to move in with his brother-after all, isn't Nick walking the straight-and-narrow these days? Not hardly: he may have a landscaping business, a decent golf game and a band, Puss N' Booze, but he's also got a nice cocaine trade. Then Luke falls for a kleptomaniac, Nick lands in jail, and Luke has to play pick-up man in a drug drop. Hudgens's sharp dialogue sparkles throughout, and the cat-and-mouse confrontations between Luke, Nick and the local lawmen are particularly funny. Hudgens's takes on car racing, Claudia's dating, Luke's first love and Nick's attempts to teach Luke his dubious keys to success also shine in this shaggy but thoroughly enjoyable debut. Agent, Joe Regal. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Luke Fulmer is basically a good kid. So what if he borrows a neighbor's car, and she notices that it is gone before he returns it? So what if he gets hauled before the toughest juvenile judge in north Georgia, who revokes his driver's license and sentences him to six months' probation? These and other escapades do not curb this 16-year-old with a big heart and even bigger ideas. Fortunately, Luke is also a quick study, fleet of foot, and blessed with basic good sense and a wicked sense of irony. Hudgens's debut novel is a compelling coming-of-age story, narrated by Luke himself-a rollicking tale of love, death, drag racing, drug dealing, alcoholism, country music, and hanging out. How Luke survives probation and takes charge of his own life will touch a nerve with many readers who have experienced dysfunctional families and survived to remember. Recommended for most popular fiction collections.-Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews