The Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman, Steve Heller, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1987
Set in present-day Oklahoma, Lucky Kellerman, a widower, has had a life-long love affair with cars. He has kept every car he ever owned, except the first one, a 1932 V-8 roadster. One day, he locks himself inside an abandoned one-room schoolhouse on his property with the intention of building one from the ground up. The interesting thing is that with him in the schoolhouse are 100,000 honey bees.
Along with the car building, Lucky does a lot of reminiscing. He used to be one of the best car mechanics around, until he was forced out of business by an injury and the bank. When he was a teenager, he secretly built a car from the ground up. His father's reaction was to take an axe to it. Lucky's relationship with his son, an ex-game show host now making travel commercials in Hawaii, could perhaps be described as two people rarely being on the same wavelength.
It may be wrong to call this a dark and depressing novel, but it isn't very light and optimistic, either. It's certainly interesting and original, and Heller does a good job at making Kellerman into some sort of Everyman. Can I recommend it? I really don't know. Try it and see for yourself.
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