This Just Read: Velva Jean Learns to Drive

This Just Read: Velva Jean Learns to Drive

Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven
Historical. Women’s Fiction. By Penguin Plume. © 2009
available at Barnes & Noble (picture linked to Amazon)

The blurb from Jennifer Niven’s website:

“Set in Appalachia in the years before World War II, Velva Jean Learns to Drive is a poignant story of a spirited young girl growing up in the gold-mining and moonshining South.One Sunday when she is ten years old, Velva Jean Hart is saved. Life soon brings unwelcome changes: her loving mother becomes ill and dies, and her father leaves on one of his "adventures." While Velva Jean's bossy older sister runs the home, Velva Jean consoles herself by singing and finding companionship with Johnny Clay, her rebellious brother; the infamous Wood Carver, who is rumored to have killed a man; and, when she is a beautiful teenager, Harley Bright, a handsome juvenile delinquent-turned-revival preacher. As their tumultuous love story unfolds, Velva Jean must choose between keeping her hard-won home and pursuing her dream of singing in the Grand Ole Opry.”

My take:

This is a beautifully told story of one girl’s coming of age, set in the hills and hollers of rural Appalachia back in the 1930’s. It’s something I was automatically, intrinsically drawn to. I love a good coming of age tale, and that it’s set in the Appalachian mountains in the days that birthed the Blue Ridge Parkway, which I’ve travelled many a mile on. I went to college for a few years in the Shenandoah Valley, so picturing the landscape Niven so accurately describes, was easy and felt like a trip back to part of what I call home.

When I pick up a book, it really doesn’t matter to me if it’s Christian fiction or not, so long as the story is one that touches me and is told well. And as I read this book, I had to keep stopping and asking- was this Christian fiction or not? The answer is no, but if you read it, it’ll be hard to deny that the story of redemption and Christ are present. Niven takes a hard look at radical revival time Christianity, which really- isn’t too very far from a lot of current churches. And it’s always alongside the main character, Velva Jean’s, own experience with God, and the relationship that ensues.

This is one of those books where as I realized I was just a few, maybe ten, chapters from the end I wanted to stop reading not because I was bored or put off, but because I didn’t want the story to end. Velva Jean was good company and there was something that resonated so deeply with my own story (personal story) that I knew it’d be like saying goodbye to a good friend and I wasn’t ready to part with her yet. (But hope is restored; Niven is working on a sequel.)

The only trouble I had with this book was the end. Velva Jean’s marriage is in a troubled place, her husband is hardly the man she married, and what’s more, he’s stopping her from following her calling- so in the end (spoiler alert) she sets off without him to follow her calling. But for me, it felt like she was running away without trying to fix what was broken (understand- for the story – it works, it really does, it fits- especially knowing there’s a sequel coming). It felt like an immature response for someone who was supposed to have matured. But, it did leave the door open for a sequel, which is coming, so maybe she’ll see her own impact and take responsibility for that in the next book.

Caution to those who have other responsibilities in your life (probably all of you): this will make you want to hide in cozy corner with a never-ending cup of tea, and you won’t want to come out until you reach the last page. Even then, you might try to go back a few chapters so that the story won’t be over yet.

It’s a good read. And, if I understand correctly, it’s Niven’s first published novel. (Not the first she’s written, but the first to be published.) And apparently, it started out as a script (by Niven) which was turned into a movie, and then made into the novel.

I hope you’ll enjoy this, too. All the appropriate links are in place. (Can be found on Audible, and apparently Costco, too.) Happy Reading.