My Son Is a Splendid Driver

by William Inge

hardcover

Genres: Fiction, Novels

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1971

About the author

Dramas of American playwright William Motter Inge explored the expectations and fears of small-town Midwesterners; his play Picnic (1953) won a Pulitzer Prize.

Works of this novelist typically feature solitary protagonists, encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, Broadway produced a memorable string. Inge rooted his portraits of life and settings in the heartland.

Reviews

[Patrick Barry]

This is the story of the Hansen family. It is told in two parts the first featuring the early years of the narrator and the second the narrator as a young man. The family suffers from the loss of the narrator's brother, killed in an accident despite being a splendid driver. It also deals with his parents' syphilis which seems weird to be in the story but there it is. What to make of the story is hard. The narrator grows up unreconciled with his father or mother. Alone is a rather sad place for the book to end and I think keeps it from being a better story.

[Andy]

Sometimes you’ve gotta just pick the book with the random weird title off the library shelf and give it a shot because, wow. I feel like I myself have lived this man’s life in Kansas from 1910-1970.

There are a million amazing memoirs, fictionalized or otherwise, like this floating out there in obscurity—like I don’t even think they’re making new copies of this book anymore. So pick one up if you find one!

[David Ward]

My Son Is a Splendid Driver by William Inge (Little, Brown & Co. 1971) (Fiction – General). The Hansen family of Kansas is the subject of this novel by the author of “Picnic” and “Come Back, Little Sheba.” This book was referenced when I was reading about college fraternities in the early twentieth century and the sex lives of the initiates. My rating: 7/10, finished 3/29/15.