OUT OF CONTROL

by Dan Gerber ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 1974

What do you do if you're a slightly too-intelligent race car driver, Can-Am circuit, in contention for the World Championship, particularly if you win next week at Mosport? You sleep with the usual southern groupies at Daytona where you test the new car, worry how to break the news to your wife that you have fallen head over heels with someone you just met the day before -- then, just when the going is good -- a half course lead over anyone else -- a note from the wife telling you she has run off with your former college roommate whom you mistakenly thought was gay and a suddenly wrecked car in the middle of the track leaves you nowhere to go. Nowhere. This is a fine sequel to American Atlas (1973), an unsentimental, quick-moving montage of past and present culminating in a brilliant albeit short final scene where every driver's (and, more generally, every human's) nightmare unexpectedly but inevitably comes to confront him. The author is particularly good at creating a fluid stream-of-consciousness in which the contradictions of the human mind are allowed to flourish humorously and profusely: e.g., the murderous jealousy of an indifferent husband held in check by the irony of the paradox.

Pub Date: April 18, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION