The Red Car

I think the most impressive thing about The Red Car (and basically EVERYTHING about it is impressive) is how gentle Demansky's hand on it is. I realize that's a ridiculous thing to say about an author, but in other stories like this once -- a white woman in her 30s dealing with a life she's realized she doesn't love and the choices that got her there -- it often feels as if the writer is dragging the reader through scenes, assembling lessons, and aligning symbols. But The Red Car, somehow, is entirely Leah's story. She is its driving (literally and otherwise) force and, with the lightest of touches, Dermansky guides her, crafting each scene so goddamn perfectly that each and every moment is convincing and every bit of humor a pure delight. As a reader, you never, ever want the adventure to end. I feel entirely unequal to the task of writing about a book as great as this one, so it's something I will be mutely hurling insistently at every reader I know the moment it comes out.

Marcy Dermansky’s narrators remind me of Ali Pfefferman, Abby Hoffman’s character on Transparent. Utterly lost, a bit more than slightly subversive, but so appealing in their inability to be anything but genuine - flaws, foibles and all. In Dermansky’s latest book, aspiring young novelist Leah drifts through life, going through the motions, from San Francisco to Queens, NY where she lives, unhappily married to her Austrian green-card husband, Hans, also a writer. One day, she gets the news that her former, beloved boss, Judy, has died. Judy has left Leah her red sports car, some money, and a few strange requests, so Leah takes off alone for the funeral in California, much to her husband’s dismay. In California, Leah follows what she perceives as signs, and the book becomes a surreal road trip story, with the possessed red car leading the way. Though Leah is aimless, the book maintains a suspenseful pace. Leah’s antics, and her wry observations about life’s mundane oddities make for a fresh, quirky read.

I loved this book. I loved that nothing is over-explained, just matter-of-factly set out for you. I loved the open-endedness of it all, how it could have kept going for a hundred more pages and put a neat bow on everything, but instead leaves it hazy.