Man in the (Rearview) Mirror: That Time I Left Corporate America, Became an Uber Driver, and Lived to Write About It

by LaRue Cook

Overview

At a time when American identity is increasingly fractured, LaRue Cook explores a deeply personal journey through love, loss, and self-discovery, using the lens of a physical journey across the United States, and abroad, by a former corporate sports-editor-turned-Uber driver. Part voyeuristic, part inspirational, sometimes hilarious, always thoughtful and probing, Man in the (Rearview) Mirror is a book about learning how to love yourself (and others) at a time in America when it is often too easy to hate. With compassion for his passengers and himself, Cook carefully navigates us to a place of forgiveness, patience, and, hopefully, peace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949116021
Publisher:	Woodhall Press
Publication date:	07/01/2019
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

In a former life, LaRue Cook was a senior editor at ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com. After an Existential Crisis—and turning thirty—he retreated south to pursue his PhD in creative writing at Georgia State University, where he also teaches English composition and fiction writing. He holds a degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an MFA from Fairfield University in Connecticut. His nonfiction has appeared in such publications as ESPN The Magazine and Reader’s Digest, while his fiction has appeared in Washington Square Review, Barely South Review, and Noctua Review, among other places. He currently resides in Decatur, Georgia, just east of Atlanta, where he’s working on a collection of short stories. His home will always be Kingston, Tennessee, if only in spirit.

Table of Contents

Contents

Author’s Note ix

Prologue: Why the Hell I Did It 1

The Day My Father Died 6

Eugene’s Mother 11

Kumar’s Mother 15

The Man Who Needed a Lift 18

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror Part 1 22

Things About Me You Oughta Know 28

I’d Rather Laugh with the Sinners 50

Jack and Me and the Prostitute 53

Go West, Young . . . Man? Part 1 61

A Rookie’s Guide to the Grand Canyon 78

Go West, Young . . . Man? Part 2 81

Nerds Need Love Too 87

Dirty Dishes 97

Black Lives Matter Part 1 103

The Women at the Country Club 117

Black Lives Matter Part 2 128

One Year, 1,716 Rides, and a Crossroads 137

Black Lives Matter Part 3 143

An Ode to Alcohol 166

Goodbye to (Most) All That 185

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror Part 2 191

Epilogue: The Price of Admission 204

Acknowledgments 222

About the Author 223

Editorial Reviews

“I thought I was a pretty brave man, ’til I read LaRue Cook’s memoir. It took guts to walk away from a cushy corporate job, and even more guts—and great talent—to turn it into such an excellent read. It is Southern at its heart, but universal in its appeal, to strike out, and do what you yearn to do.”

—Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author of Ava’s Man and All Over but the Shoutin’

“This book is full of so many wonderful surprises. It is by turns a searing memoir, a hilarious travelogue, and a work of vivid reporting about this fractious American moment. Cook’s writing is unfailingly searching and honest, and his moving book reveals a person—and a country—at a crossroads.”

—Eli Saslow, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for The Washington Post and author of Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

“LaRue Cook has written an important memoir that takes the temperature of this moment of American upheaval. LaRue is the kind of writer we need now—bold and humble, insatiably curious, certain and unsure. A white writer unafraid to write about race. A man proud to share his scars and his wounds. A brother to us all who believes we can heal if we try. This is a book to read and then give to a friend. This is a book about the heart and soul of We the People.”

—Marita Golden, author of Saving Our Sons: Raising Black Children in a Turbulent World and co-founder of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

From the Publisher