Aristotle's Poetics talks about—among many other things—what can unify a piece of literature. It's done through cause and effect, and he warns that a man's (or woman's, I guess) life in and of itself cannot be a unifying factor. (Subset: he is talking fiction, not biographies.) Thus, the first thing I'll say about Monica Holloway's Driving with Dead People is that it sure illustrates Aristotle's concerns. Okay. I guess is not actually fiction. I forget what Entertainment Weekly labeled it. Memoir? Whatever. The author moves through her life, describing events but never really letting the reader know what was actually going on until a-not-terribly-surprising revelation at the end. I guess that's what troubled me. It wasn't biography because the writer was hiding the big truths of her childhood and, in my mind, once a writer starts using suspense and hints—the stuff of fiction—he/she has left nonfiction behind. I dunno. The book was interesting but terribly episodic. My final reaction: so that's what the book was about; sure wish I'd known it sooner.
