In Will Allison’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, a happily married man makes a split-second decision that sends his life into a devastating tailspin.
Life can change in an instant because of one small mistake. For Glen Bauer, all it takes is a quick jerk of the steering wheel, an impulsive move intended to scare a reckless driver—not kill him. But when Glen realizes no one saw the deadly accident, he lies to the police, to his wife, even to his six-year-old daughter, Sara, who was in the backseat at the time of the crash. As his wife’s panicked plan to save their family instead threatens to tear it apart, Glen can’t help wondering: What if the accident wasn’t really his fault? What if someone else were to blame? Struggling to understand the extent of his own culpability, Glen finds himself on yet another collision course, different in kind but with equally terrible potential.
Long Drive Home is a stunning cautionary tale of unintended consequences that confirms Will Allison’s reputation as a rising literary talent.
Reading Group Book Questions
- While driving home with his daughter, Sara, Glen Bauer engages in a showdown with a teenaged driver, Juwan Howard, that results in tragedy. Do you think the accident is all Glen’s fault? If not, how much of the blame rests with Juwan?
- After being interrogated by the police, Glen lies to his wife, Liz, about the accident too: “I waited until we got to the restaurant to tell my version, basically the same story I’d told the police. Somehow, with Liz, it felt like even more of a lie.” (p. 30) Why doesn’t he tell her the truth? What are the ramifications?
- Later, after Glen confesses more of the truth to Liz, she tells him, “[You] can’t really say [the accident] was your fault. You might have been involved, but that’s not the same. You were just minding your own business. He was the one breaking the law. He caused the accident.” (p. 53) How do you feel about her argument?
- After watching Tawana, Juwan’s mother, break down at the site of the accident, Glen is consumed with guilt: “I remember feeling like it would serve me right if something terrible happened to my family too. To get what I’d given. That’s what I would have wanted, I think, if I had been in her shoes.” (p. 44) Do you think he’s right, or would Tawana have shown more forgiveness than he imagines?
- Glen and Liz decide to attend Juwan’s funeral for very different reasons. What are they? Do you think either has an ulterior motive?
- How do Glen’s first impressions of Juwan differ from his later impressions? Do you think his attitude toward Juwan has anything to do with race?
- “My run-in with the Suburban guy was no more a mere footnote to the accident than the accident itself was an isolated, out-of-the-blue event. On the contrary, it had been the culmination of that whole afternoon, in which A led to B led to C.” (pp. 63-64) Do you find this line of reasoning convincing? How much do the events leading up to the accident contribute to the accident itself?
- Glen doubts his ability to deceive Detective Rizzo: “A guilty conscious can be tricky that way: knowing I was lying made it hard to believe anyone else could believe me.” (p. 77) When do you think Rizzo first becomes suspicious of Glen?
- “It’s about Sara,” Liz tells Glen. “Her future. I’ve worked hard to give her a good one—we both have—and I’m going to make sure she gets it.” Do you feel Liz is justified in demanding a divorce? (p. 84-85)
- Glen doesn’t understand Liz’s behavior: “[D]espite what she said, I can’t believe the accident was the only thing she was reacting to. I think she must have been mad at me for a while, or disappointed at the way our marriage had turned out. Somehow all of that got tangled up in the decision she was making.” (p. 93) Do you think he’s right? What other factors might be involved?
- Recalling his conversation with Tawana outside Burris’s office, Glen says, “Looking back, I suppose it must seem like I wanted to get caught.” (p. 118) Do you believe he did, subconsciously? And if so, does this subconscious urge manifest itself elsewhere in the story?
- Structurally, Long Drive Home alternates between excerpts from Glen’s letter to Sara and passages of conventional first-person narration. Do you think Glen is a reliable narrator? Is he more, or less, reliable in the letter? Are there points at which you feel you understand Glen better than he understands himself?
- Glen becomes increasingly obsessed with Derek Dye: “Maybe I couldn’t blame him for the accident, but if I’d been a bomb waiting to go off that day, he was the one who’d lit the fuse. He was the one who’d made me a bomb in the first place.” (p. 153) Why do you think Glen ultimately attacks Derek?
- When Detective Rizzo confronts Glen at the bar, he accuses him of having no conscience: “It’s like you’re broke inside.” (p. 159) Do you believe Glen truly has no conscience? What would you have told the police?
About the Author
Will Allison’s debut novel, What You Have Left, was selected for Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, Borders Original Voices, and Book Sense Picks, and was named one of 2007’s notable books by the San Francisco Chronicle. His short stories have appeared in magazines such as Zoetrope: All-Story, Glimmer Train, and One Story and have received special mention in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories anthologies. He is the former executive editor of Story. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, he now lives with his wife and daughter in New Jersey.
Industry Reviews
""Long Drive Home" examines, with haunting elegance, how quickly one bad decision can descend into calamity. The dread grows with every page--as does the horrifying realization that the narrator's choices could be yours, and his tragedy could so easily be your own."--Lauren Grodstein, author of A Friend of the Family
"In "Long Drive Home, " Will Allison reminds us how risky life is, how one bad move, one swerve from the right path, might set in motion a series of events that can destroy what we love."--Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of American Salvage
"Will Allison is a natural storyteller. As he makes clear with his stunning second book, he also has a habit of writing poignant, compulsively readable novels. "Long Drive Home" is a gripping, elegant, morally complex, and vividly realized portrait of our time and place."--Frederick Reiken, author of Day for Night
"Will Allison's "Long Drive Home "is a sneaky novel, and I mean this as highest praise. Just as the narrator's misdeeds sneak into his conscience and then refuse to leave, so too will this novel's wry voice and beautifully drawn characters burrow into your heart and mind. A harrowing, terrifically tense, unforgettable book."--Brock Clarke, author of Exley
"Will Allison's beautiful novel is part detective story, part wrenching family drama. It will make you hold your children tighter and kiss your husband or wife longer, thinking of the simple pleasures of everyday life that can be so easily spirited away."--Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
"[A] tight drama, part psychological thriller, part tragedy . . . Allison's effortless prose and playful genre mixing showcase a burgeoning talent."
"A man driving with his 6-year-old daughter in the back seat gets a case of road rage after a teenage driver cuts him off....[T]he dad, Glen, decides to teach the teenage boy a lesson....While narrowly focusing his lens on the event and its consequences, Mr. Allison still manages to take in a panorama of human behavior. Not knowing what his little girl was aware of, Glen doesn't admit his role in the accident to his wife or the police. Mr. Allison's gift is in making that lie--and each new one it inevitably spawns--understandable, showing how this story could be anyone's."
"In "Long Drive Home", Allison focuses on the brutally quick unraveling of Glen's peaceful existence, filling the reader with not only dread but also the desire to discover what terrible--or hopeful--development awaits on the next page."
"In this psychological thriller, the cover-up is as bad as the crime....With one disastrous decision and the turn of his steering wheel, Glen Bauer manages to destroy four lives and two families. That incident and the years of guilt and deception that follow are the subject of Allison's fine second novel (after "What You Have "Left), a gripping morality that raises questions about race, conscience and the responsibilities of parenthood....Allison's eye for the quiet details of domestic life highlights what's at stake, and he makes brilliant use of the precocious Sara..."
"Like a nightmare that gets scarier and scarier as the hyperrealistic details mount, Will Allison's psychological thriller "Long Drive Home" can shake you up . . . But while wondering whether Glen will get arrested is what keeps you turning pages, Allison's eye for the details of marriage and fatherhood, and his deconstruction of what can happen when a good guy makes one false move, are what will break your heart."
