What do you think?
Rate this book
American Lives
Driving with Dvorak: Essays on Memory and Identity
All our lives are made of moments, both simple and sublime, all of which in some way partake of the cultural moment. Fleda Brown is that rare writer who, in narrating the incidents and observations of her life, turns her story, by wit and insight and a poet’s gift, into something more. This is an unconventional memoir. A series of lyrical essays about life in a maddeningly complex family during the even more maddeningly complex fifties and sixties, it adds up to one woman’s story while simultaneously reflecting the story of her times.
A strange and erratic father, a resigned and helpless mother, a mentally disabled brother, a sister with a brain folded into Brown’s reflections are the intimacies and ambivalences of family and marriage, girlhood and adolescence, identity and self-knowledge. Whether reflecting on the automobile industry or a wrenching parting from beloved pets or the process of aging, Brown’s telling rings with great humor, profound perception, and a lyricism that makes even the most commonplace moment uncommonly good reading.
A strange and erratic father, a resigned and helpless mother, a mentally disabled brother, a sister with a brain folded into Brown’s reflections are the intimacies and ambivalences of family and marriage, girlhood and adolescence, identity and self-knowledge. Whether reflecting on the automobile industry or a wrenching parting from beloved pets or the process of aging, Brown’s telling rings with great humor, profound perception, and a lyricism that makes even the most commonplace moment uncommonly good reading.
284 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2010
44 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 8, 2011
For the majority of Driving with Dvorak, a collection of memoir essays by Fleda Brown, the style is clear with a smart and snappy wit. I related closely to her dark-humored, self-depreciating style. It’s similar to the voice I use in much of my story and blog writing (thankfully, they are much different beasts). Brown is a self-described lyric essay-writer, and her varying stories gave good examples of her take on the form. There were the braided essays: some braiding facts or research against actual events, others jumping through time and place to reach a common conclusion. I’m trying my hand at writing in this style right now, so it was helpful to watch the form at work. As we discussed at the residency in the “Larger Than Life Character” craft talk, it was good to see how right it can go—and how it can go wrong.
I would stack most of Brown’s writing in the coveted “Right” bin. When she’s jumping around in the narrative, she doesn’t simply rely on white space to alert and ground the reader. She reminds us where she is, and foreshadows its significance to the greater whole. In “Walls Six Feet Thick,” she introduces us to a relationship we’re told right away will eventually fail. And yet, reading the tender moments with Ray and seeing his loveable features with his flaws, we almost root for an alternate ending. She has to remind us where her heart is, pulling us back from falling in love. As if reading our minds, she says “I guess we’re all loveable if you could keep each of our tiny aspects suspended, unanchored in time, but you can’t. I know I have to get out of here, soon” (Brown 86). Giving us this trail of fate helps us follow her back and forth in their relationship easier—knowing the ending, but enjoying the ride.
My favorite esasy was “Anatomy of a Seizure,” which Brown places toward the beginning of the book. The placement is notable for two reasons: as one of the strongest pieces in the book, it propels the momentum from the beginning; it also touches on one of the most pivotal and heartbreaking struggles of the life her book reveals to us. The “anatomy” of the essay is broken up into sections that describe the causes and symptoms of seizures through the device of her mentally retarded brother. “Anxiety I” describes the burden her parents uneasily carry with their own fragile selves, and the tension it creates. “Normal” paints a sympathetic portrait of Brown’s younger sister, who craves acceptance and normalcy in her child and adult years more than anything else, and finds herself forsaking the family to do so. I love this creative approach to breaching a difficult subject—breaking it down into pieces and anecdotes, and tying them together in an almost scientific way.
There were only two essays I feel fell seriously short: “New Car” and “Returning the Cats.” “New Car” employed the juxtapose-a-fact-timeline-with-your-life technique, by switching back between the history of Brown’s car with the lives she led in it. Watching the vehicles serve as a vehicle for the chapters in her life was a good concept, but the bland history of a certain brand of commuter car didn’t add much. If anything, it slowed the pace and bogged down what would otherwise be an interesting look at her marriages and transitions. I can’t fault the writing in “Returning the Cats”, I just hated hearing about returning cats to the pound because they peed on her rug. I am a little biased when it comes to cats, and I apologize if this inhibits my subjectivity.
The arrangement of the book was particularly interesting to me. It seemed that with every essay, she evoked a question within us. The next would hint at the answer, or at least give us a story to draw our own conclusions from, while leading into the next question and echoed answer. The first piece describes her trying to change her last name. We ask, what are these marriages she’s trying to sever herself from? Which leads us to “I Am Sick of School,” a narrative on her desperate love and fast marriage to a much-older high school sweetheart. What would drive this girl into such desperation to get away from her home and family? “Anatomy of a Seizure” comes in, shedding light on the very hard situation that her family faced with her brother’s constant special needs. How did this past and obligation affect other members of her family? “Driving with Dvorak” sails in, a portrait of her tortured father. And so on, stringing and engaging us along through the end, where we find out that Brown is ironically almost deaf. All this time we’ve been listening, not knowing that she can hardly hear the world around her. She sifts through the one she knows, gives us these pieces. Her serenity with her world leaves us feeling at peace, that this was a life she can finally understand in the silence.
I would stack most of Brown’s writing in the coveted “Right” bin. When she’s jumping around in the narrative, she doesn’t simply rely on white space to alert and ground the reader. She reminds us where she is, and foreshadows its significance to the greater whole. In “Walls Six Feet Thick,” she introduces us to a relationship we’re told right away will eventually fail. And yet, reading the tender moments with Ray and seeing his loveable features with his flaws, we almost root for an alternate ending. She has to remind us where her heart is, pulling us back from falling in love. As if reading our minds, she says “I guess we’re all loveable if you could keep each of our tiny aspects suspended, unanchored in time, but you can’t. I know I have to get out of here, soon” (Brown 86). Giving us this trail of fate helps us follow her back and forth in their relationship easier—knowing the ending, but enjoying the ride.
My favorite esasy was “Anatomy of a Seizure,” which Brown places toward the beginning of the book. The placement is notable for two reasons: as one of the strongest pieces in the book, it propels the momentum from the beginning; it also touches on one of the most pivotal and heartbreaking struggles of the life her book reveals to us. The “anatomy” of the essay is broken up into sections that describe the causes and symptoms of seizures through the device of her mentally retarded brother. “Anxiety I” describes the burden her parents uneasily carry with their own fragile selves, and the tension it creates. “Normal” paints a sympathetic portrait of Brown’s younger sister, who craves acceptance and normalcy in her child and adult years more than anything else, and finds herself forsaking the family to do so. I love this creative approach to breaching a difficult subject—breaking it down into pieces and anecdotes, and tying them together in an almost scientific way.
There were only two essays I feel fell seriously short: “New Car” and “Returning the Cats.” “New Car” employed the juxtapose-a-fact-timeline-with-your-life technique, by switching back between the history of Brown’s car with the lives she led in it. Watching the vehicles serve as a vehicle for the chapters in her life was a good concept, but the bland history of a certain brand of commuter car didn’t add much. If anything, it slowed the pace and bogged down what would otherwise be an interesting look at her marriages and transitions. I can’t fault the writing in “Returning the Cats”, I just hated hearing about returning cats to the pound because they peed on her rug. I am a little biased when it comes to cats, and I apologize if this inhibits my subjectivity.
The arrangement of the book was particularly interesting to me. It seemed that with every essay, she evoked a question within us. The next would hint at the answer, or at least give us a story to draw our own conclusions from, while leading into the next question and echoed answer. The first piece describes her trying to change her last name. We ask, what are these marriages she’s trying to sever herself from? Which leads us to “I Am Sick of School,” a narrative on her desperate love and fast marriage to a much-older high school sweetheart. What would drive this girl into such desperation to get away from her home and family? “Anatomy of a Seizure” comes in, shedding light on the very hard situation that her family faced with her brother’s constant special needs. How did this past and obligation affect other members of her family? “Driving with Dvorak” sails in, a portrait of her tortured father. And so on, stringing and engaging us along through the end, where we find out that Brown is ironically almost deaf. All this time we’ve been listening, not knowing that she can hardly hear the world around her. She sifts through the one she knows, gives us these pieces. Her serenity with her world leaves us feeling at peace, that this was a life she can finally understand in the silence.
May 24, 2021
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/dr...
...The more I learn the attention of love, the more I lurch out of control, helpless to prevent the pain of loss.Together, Jerry and I clear the path, the creek: we make it look as nearly as possible the way we want, briefly, on our way toward our own extinction…
Pretty much anything Fleda Brown decides to write an essay about will be interesting. And most likely it will often have humor in it, though with a sharp little smart-aleck tone I guess, as she says. Any topic comes to life by her pen. Fleda is an amazing writer. I am certain of her character, and personality, just as amazing. It is because she is as honest as can be. Right, nobody is completely honest, we wouldn’t dare to be, but Fleda goes to great lengths to persuade us otherwise.
..The first glance at beauty changes it forever. To feel pleasure in beauty, to be really aware of it, is to be simultaneously sad…
Her favorite subject, at least her most worn, seems to be her father. He shows up in most all her work. And often. But the yin and yang of their relationship is one for the books. The family she grew up in, the ones she married into and left, the one she is currently building with her beloved husband Jerry. I cannot express clearly enough, or forcefully enough, the importance of the writing of Fleda Brown. She writes for all of us sort of regular or common people in order for us to learn from her mistakes as well as those decisions that turned out to be good for her and others she loves. She writes of my place of origin, northern Michigan. Her cottage actually sits directly across the state from mine, separated almost due east by about a hundred miles where ours nestles in the Huron National Forest. We have Lake Huron nearby whereas she has Lake Michigan. Both great lakes. We sold our place in 2018. Talk about feeling sadness. We loved our summer cottage and made good use of it for over fifteen years.
...The foul rag and bone shop of the heart? Note that Yeats didn’t go there. He went to the poem, he invented the poem to talk about the rag and bone shop. The poem is a circus of glitter and subterfuge. It dances off the ends of the earth carrying its heavy load. But it doesn’t fall, because it imagines rising…
All of the small things that make up a life, little nuances, neighbors and the like, Fleda can tell a good story about. Her writing is like having her over for a friendly chat. She is that comfortable to be around, to hang out with, cool as shit and feisty too. Can you tell I love her, I do. And my wife loves to read her essays too, and feel good about sitting for an hour or two alone but in her presence. And never feeling she is too far out of reach. A connection made, which is what she always wanted from her father, but felt so disconnected from. And because of him really, we have her for our own. And now we share her with you because we must.
...I’m relieved , in a bittersweet way, that there are limits to everything, that I am attached to the earth, that I will die. It is, after all, our inexorable mortality that brings us together...
I know of no other writer who can explain family dynamics without breaking into a personal agenda, often hateful or at the least resentful, and sure to drive some, or most of us away. But here Fleda is honest, forthcoming, and bold in her questions and assessments over what may, or may not, have happened. She is not at all a know-it-all. But she is a wise old owl, having fallen out of her tree enough times to know better onto which branch to place her weight and trust on. She can spot the differences now, the strengths and weaknesses often obscured by youth and ignorance. She is a clever old girl, and her beauty is in the myriad colors and shapes discovered in reading, actually devouring, her writing.
...The more I learn the attention of love, the more I lurch out of control, helpless to prevent the pain of loss.Together, Jerry and I clear the path, the creek: we make it look as nearly as possible the way we want, briefly, on our way toward our own extinction…
Pretty much anything Fleda Brown decides to write an essay about will be interesting. And most likely it will often have humor in it, though with a sharp little smart-aleck tone I guess, as she says. Any topic comes to life by her pen. Fleda is an amazing writer. I am certain of her character, and personality, just as amazing. It is because she is as honest as can be. Right, nobody is completely honest, we wouldn’t dare to be, but Fleda goes to great lengths to persuade us otherwise.
..The first glance at beauty changes it forever. To feel pleasure in beauty, to be really aware of it, is to be simultaneously sad…
Her favorite subject, at least her most worn, seems to be her father. He shows up in most all her work. And often. But the yin and yang of their relationship is one for the books. The family she grew up in, the ones she married into and left, the one she is currently building with her beloved husband Jerry. I cannot express clearly enough, or forcefully enough, the importance of the writing of Fleda Brown. She writes for all of us sort of regular or common people in order for us to learn from her mistakes as well as those decisions that turned out to be good for her and others she loves. She writes of my place of origin, northern Michigan. Her cottage actually sits directly across the state from mine, separated almost due east by about a hundred miles where ours nestles in the Huron National Forest. We have Lake Huron nearby whereas she has Lake Michigan. Both great lakes. We sold our place in 2018. Talk about feeling sadness. We loved our summer cottage and made good use of it for over fifteen years.
...The foul rag and bone shop of the heart? Note that Yeats didn’t go there. He went to the poem, he invented the poem to talk about the rag and bone shop. The poem is a circus of glitter and subterfuge. It dances off the ends of the earth carrying its heavy load. But it doesn’t fall, because it imagines rising…
All of the small things that make up a life, little nuances, neighbors and the like, Fleda can tell a good story about. Her writing is like having her over for a friendly chat. She is that comfortable to be around, to hang out with, cool as shit and feisty too. Can you tell I love her, I do. And my wife loves to read her essays too, and feel good about sitting for an hour or two alone but in her presence. And never feeling she is too far out of reach. A connection made, which is what she always wanted from her father, but felt so disconnected from. And because of him really, we have her for our own. And now we share her with you because we must.
...I’m relieved , in a bittersweet way, that there are limits to everything, that I am attached to the earth, that I will die. It is, after all, our inexorable mortality that brings us together...
I know of no other writer who can explain family dynamics without breaking into a personal agenda, often hateful or at the least resentful, and sure to drive some, or most of us away. But here Fleda is honest, forthcoming, and bold in her questions and assessments over what may, or may not, have happened. She is not at all a know-it-all. But she is a wise old owl, having fallen out of her tree enough times to know better onto which branch to place her weight and trust on. She can spot the differences now, the strengths and weaknesses often obscured by youth and ignorance. She is a clever old girl, and her beauty is in the myriad colors and shapes discovered in reading, actually devouring, her writing.
November 19, 2025
Okay, I loved the writing. It’s definitely not a book you can rush through, and hard to remember a coherent timeline but it is a cozy and honest read with lots of truth droplets sprinkled throughout. The essay on cats was my favorite.
March 1, 2011
Fleda Brown’s prose is as lyrical as her poetry. It rises and falls as she describes, through a series of essays, a lifelong attempt to connect with her father. The cabin in Michigan which is a feature of much of her poetry is also a mainstay in the essays. This cabin is an apt metaphor for Brown’s family. Brown writes with a gentle yet determined grace that makes even the most difficult topic of these essays a joy to read. Her poetry is rich with perfect word choices, and so is her prose.
September 15, 2010
Vehemently smart and ultimately forgiving essays about surviving a damaging family and still loving the world.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews