J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Monday, May 21, 2012

The O'Briens & the California Woodie

from my novel THE O'BRIENS (Pantheon. New York. 2012):


"Their summer car, an old Ford station wagon with a wooden body, was up on blocks in the coach house. After changing the oil and spark plugs, filling the radiator and tires, and charging the battery, he drove to the shape-up yard at the bottom of Nopal Street, where he hired two Mexican day labourers and a concrete finisher. Bringing the men back to the house, he set them to work demolishing the old seawall while he started drafting his plan for the new one..."


"On the first of April they all went up to Arya Vihara for a picnic. The Lincoln had a cracked oil pan and was in the garage getting repaired, so they took the old station wagon. Mike drove. They started along Foothills Road, past fields of flowers at Carpinteria. Climbing Casitas Pass, he kept the station wagon in second gear, worried that the frail old engine might throw a rod..."

"She suddenly remembered him in California, rushing and cool, sensitive. In a white T-shirt and dark glasses, at the wheel of their old station wagon. Steering over Casitas Pass, one hand on the wheel, one slender brown arm propped at the window."

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