St. Dale

I wanted to say a few words about a very different and interesting book I finished recently: "St. Dale" by Sharon McCrumb.

I've never been into NASCAR racing. But, as my dad and my brother are huge racing fans, I've grown up around racing. That's another element of the soundtrack to my childhood and adolescence: the weekend whine/roar of cars racing on tv.

So..."St. Dale?" The premise of this novel is that to a lot of fans, Dale Earnhardt is or should be a saint. The novel tells the story of a bunch of folks on a Dale Ernhardt memorial bus tour, traveling from race track to race track in the south. A minister, escorting a very sick little boy on a "dream come true" trip; a newlywed couple, in which the wife is honoring her new husband's wish to get married on the infield of a race track; three girlfriends who are race-obessessed; a young Manhattan investment banker who never knew his father, but learned after his death that his father loved Dale Earnhardt...well, you get the idea. Each person on the bus has some personal connection to racing, and how they connect and what he meant to each one of them is diffferent and surprising and interesting.

I guess I picked this up because I've heard the racing names for so long, and still managed to absorb almost nothing about racing. And I didn't need to know about it, but still enjoyed this story. Definitely something different to read. This may end up in my brother's birthday goodies this September.

Quote for today:

"Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." Mortimer J. Adler