Kelsey Ronan’s “Chevy in the Hole” is a love story told within another love story to the city of Flint Michigan, a once robust community brought to its knees by crooked politics, the collapsing auto industry, racial and economic inequalities and deadly, polluted tap water. When the novel begins, August Molloy has just overdosed in Detroit (again) and decides to go home to crash at his sister’s house in Flint (again.) He’s not really trying to get clean when he meets Monae Livingston, an urban farmer/jazz lover/archivist/ environmental activist. When he starts working at the farm, his life turns around.
Told in alternating timelines, Ronan weaves in the backstories of the Molloy and Livingston families from the 1937 sit-in strike at the Chevy factory, to present day times. There is so much to admire in Ronan’s prose and I loved her two main protagonists. I also enjoyed the secondary characters in each family, especially the women.
Ronan’s women remind me of the protagonists of the Jane Benjamin trilogy by Shelley Blanton Stroud. (If you haven’t read the series, you need to.) Like Depression-Era-Oklahoma-transplant-turned-San-Francisco-gossip columnist Jane Benjamin, the women in “Chevy in the Hole” have grit. Beatrice, who “might’ve not made a bad revolutionary.” Rose experiencing her “postmenopausal renaissance.” Goldie with her “ringless fingers, coral polish shining.” August’s sister Annie, who he always calls when he overdoses because “she never cries in public.”
These women rise above economic ruin, brutality, cheating men, heartbreak, family secrets, social mores of the time that haven’t changed much at all, not to mention tap water that will kill their children. These women are tough. They reinvent themselves by digging deep into what they want. They’re not always likeable but they are always interesting, which to me, is more important.
Equally important is the sense of time and place threaded through the novel. We witness the Detroit uprising of 1967, tune into the Detroit music scene of Motown jazz and rock, feed carrots to the deer that have moved into Chevy in the Hole. Keith Moon has an unforgettable twenty-first birthday at the Holiday Inn. Question Mark and the Mysterians make an appearance. Aretha Franklin sponsors hotels at the same Holiday Inn to families protecting their children from toxic tap water.
There’s a deep empathy laced through Ronan’s words. I couldn’t put the book down and once I reached the deeply satisfying end, I immediately started reading it again.
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From the Publisher
Praise for Chevy in the Hole: A Novel by Kelsey Ronan
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Reviews with images
Flint, Michigan
3.5⭐️It’s hard to imagine a prosperous automobile factory ever existed in Flint, Michigan. If I had to give just a few words about this book it would be an American failure. Besides the fall of the factory there was also the fall of relationships. This brutally honest depiction of Chevy in the hole was at time difficult to listen to. And I wonder if it were to happen today would we still make the same mistakes? Could we have prevented so much damage?If I learned anything from this, it’s that we have to hold onto something good, healthy and take responsibility for our part of our American story.It’s never to late to start doing the right thing.I chose to listen to this book on audio and it was 8 hours and 8 minutes. The narrator was Janina Edwards and she was a 5 star. I don’t know if listening to this would be the best outlet because I was often confused about the present and past.Thanks Macmillan Audio via NetGalley.
