Vitality Stories
My Mom Said So
My mom read Tiger Drive last week. Now, for those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that my eighty-two year-old mom has had it in her bonnet that Tiger Drive’s a memoir rather than fiction. A lot of the confusion is my fault. After all, I did grow up on Tiger Drive in Carson City, Nevada (the book takes place in Corbett City, Nevada). And my family and novel share archetypal characters:
- an abusive husband and father
- an abused wife
- an addict
- a drug dealer with ties to a gang
Archetypes behave in anticipated ways. This is why a woman in Kansas who is abused by her husband “totally gets” the emotions and choices of an abused woman in California. An alcoholic in Nevada will understand an alcoholic in Texas. We humans act more alike than not.
My novel was causing enough angst for my mom that I didn’t tell her when Tiger Drive was published and available on the World Wide Web.
But like most moms, she found out anyway.
She called me and said her Amazon orders weren’t shipping, and she couldn’t figure out why (this happens quite often). I’m a bit of a custodian for her accounts, so I logged in to see what was happening, assuming her gift card balance was insufficient. I was right. But when I looked at her pending orders, expecting to see the usual suspects of powder coffee creamer, assorted candy, and potato chips, I knew I was in trouble. The pending order was the hardcover copy of Tiger Drive.
