Pell Center executive director Jim Ludes have introductory remarks and then I spoke, read and took questions, and then signed many books. Below are my remarks. Enjoy the ride!
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| Author Miller speaking. |
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| Part of the crowd, C-SPAN BOOK TV cameras rolling. |
Good afternoon. Let me join Jim in welcoming you. And let me thank the Pell Center, Salve Regina University, The Providence Journal, and my publisher, PublicAffairs. This is my third book with them, and they are the best. Gratitude also to Salve President Sister Jane Gerety, who would have attended if she hadn’t already planned to be out of town.
Two folks have travelled a distance to be here
today and I’d like to acknowledge them. Editor Lisa Kaufman, who has played an
important role in my writing since my book about NASCAR, Men and Speed, published in 2002, is here from New York. Lisa took
a draft of Car Crazy and performed
her editing magic, greatly improving it.
Drew Smith, my screenwriting partner and longtime
friend, has come from the West Coast.
Drew knows better than most about motoring from driving the 405 near his
home in southern California. Welcome to Newport, Drew.
And there are many other good friends and relatives
who have travelled shorter distances, from Rhode Island and elsewhere in New
England.
In a
moment, I will read from Car Crazy.
But first, an observation about writing.
The truth is, writing is about the most rewarding
and most miserable calling, wrapped into one, that I can imagine. Good that I’m
part Irish.
As my writer friends here today can testify, you
spend untold hours alone at your keyboard, hoping the dog won’t need to go out,
or someone won’t knock on the door, or the phone won’t ring, or there won’t be
any other interruptions – at least until you finish this passage that has been
haunting you, sometimes even in your sleep.
All this as you obsess – and I do mean obsess -- over the choice of a word, or
the smoothness of the narrative arc, or whether this is too much or too little
detail, or which character should have a starring role and which belongs on the
cutting-room floor.
You endeavor to be judicious with every word,
understanding that dialogue is crucial and nouns and verbs are the best tools
in your kit. Stephen King’s adage -- “the road to hell is paved with
adjectives” -- echoes in your head, and yet you still use them and their evil
twin, the adverbs, too freely. Which is when it would be nice if your editor –
or better yet, Stephen King himself -- were on hand at that moment to save you.
And despite your focus, you sometimes check your
email, social media, or phone.
Go figure.
The alone part and the crankiness that accompanies
it when that passage still frustrates you or the narrative arc has imploded is
unfair to those you hold dear. Yet they tolerate it -- most times, anyway --
which is probably more than I would in their shoes.
“All this over a word? Really? Really?” is what I imagine I would say.
The rewarding part, by the way, is a day like
today -- when your work is finally published and you can forget word choice, at
least for a few hours, and just have a good time with family and friends and
readers.
So what can
I say to someone who knows this obsession intimately: my wife, Yolanda, who
beyond being understanding could almost have written Car Crazy herself, since another thing about writers is that when
break away from their writing, they like to blab. Sometimes about trivial
matters, such as how long it took an automobile to drive from Manhattan to
Portland, Oregon, in the spring of 1905, for example.
Forty-five days, two hours and thirty minutes, in
case you were wondering.
What I can say is: thank you, Yolanda, for
everything.
Thanks also to my children who are here today:
Rachel and Kate, who lived with my passion for many years, dating back to my
first book, the horror/mystery novel Thunder
Rise, published in 1989, when they were little kids. They are why I began
getting up at 4:30 or 5 to write, a schedule I still keep, so that I could be
present when they began their days.
And to think they now have children of their own! A special shout-out to Bella,
Livvie and Vivienne!
Before I
read from Car Crazy, indulge me
in some informal market research. I have four quick questions. Please respond
with a show of hands.
-- How many
people here today did NOT arrive in a motor vehicle?
[One hand
went up]
-- How many
of you have ever been stuck in traffic?
[All hands
went up]
-- How many
of you have ever loved a car -- your own or someone else’s?
[All hands
went up]
-- How many
think you could live – happily or unhappily -- without ever riding in a motor
vehicle of any kind again?
[One hand
went up]
As we have just unscientifically demonstrated, the
motor vehicle dramatically transformed society -- unlike any other technology
in history, I would assert, with the exception of the printing press. The
factory, the steam engine, the railroad – and today’s computer, internet, and
iPhone -- do not quite compare.
There are more than 250 million motor vehicles
registered in America in 2015, and an estimated 1.2 billion or more worldwide.
This ubiquitous machine continues to power major sectors of the domestic and
international economies. It helped create suburbia. Except for the Northeast,
it all but ended American inter-city passenger rail. It injures and kills in
still-horrifying numbers. The gas-powered version contributes to global warming
-- and its thirst for petroleum has sparked wars. It has been the subject of
some of the ugliest corporate scandals in history, most recently with General
Motors and Volkswagen.
The automobile, of course, has also been loved and
cherished. I myself felt my first crush as a teenager at the wheel of an old
black Ford sedan -- and I got a twinge again today driving across the Jamestown
and Pell Bridges. I shouldn’t have been but I was speeding. It felt great!
And as we all know, the car is the protagonist or
a principal character in countless songs, books, and movies. The Great American
Road trip still mesmerizes us.
The
automobile was born more than a century ago during a frenzy of invention
and contention as the horseless carriage proliferated and the traditionalists,
who hated it, took aim. Literally, they took aim: stonings of motorists by mobs
armed with rocks, sticks, tea kettles, tin cans and metal pails regularly made
the front page of The New York Times.
Stonings were only one front in a war that pitted manufacturers
and motorists against those who opposed “the automobile evil,” as a New York state
senator called the car in 1902. In legislatures, municipal councils, courts and
the press -- in cities and in the country, where farmers sometimes used guns to
chase drivers away -- the sides battled over speed limits, traffic control,
licensing, registration and taxes. They argued liability and penalties for the
mounting numbers of injuries and fatalities. They debated whether horns and
lights should be mandated, and whether motorists should be jailed for
terrifying horses.
It all began with people like the farm boy from
Michigan whose name is on some of the cars, old and new, parked outside today.
[READ beginning of Chapter One]
In closing,
let me express my gratitude to the people who brought those incredible classic
cars parked outside. Ambassador Bill Middendorf and his motor men Mitch Morin and
Kyle Santos brought the 1893 Duryea replica and the 1912 Model T Speedster. The
Audrain Automobile Museum, right here on Bellevue Avenue – I highly recommend a
visit -- brought the 1912 Packard and the 1904 Oldsmobile, the model that
crossed from Manhattan to Portland, Oregon, in 1905, one of many adventures I chronicle
in Car Crazy. Museum executive
director David de Muzio and mechanics Joe Lanuez and Bill Meteraud are in
charge of those great cars.
I will be signing books in the board room, off the
main lobby, in a few minutes. And, at 3:30, we will have a running of all of
the cars.
Right now, I’d be happy to take a few questions.
[several
questions followed]
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