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Wrap Your Ass in Fiberglass – A Novel by George Miller

Men's Book Club Notes

1. Jackie's Sunbeam Tiger was ostensibly a Mark I. However, there is ample evidence in the book to indicate that the car was originally a Sunbeam Alpine with a Ford small block 260 cubic inch V8, a T-10 transmission, and a Salisbury rear end. Would you respect Jackie less if you knew her car was really a Sunbeam Alpine rather than a Sunbeam Tiger? Don't you feel it is more important what a person is like inside rather than the type of car they drive?
2. The folk singer bk mitchell drives a Jeep Grand Wagoneer, John's brother Marty drives a 1968 Dodge Charger, Henry Billotte drives a Wurst-mobile Hotdog Van, and Jackie's boss and mentor Abe Bernstein drives a BMW 2002. Please discuss whether each character is matched with an appropriate vehicle. Discuss the author's treatment of automobiles throughout the narration. Do you think he is too close to the metal? Two car movies are referenced: the Robert Mitchem classic Thunder Road and the Barry Newman classic Vanishing Point. Discuss the social significance of these two movies. Why is John's cat named after the protagonist in Vanishing Point? Don't you think Robert Mitchem was better in Thunder Road than in Cape Fear?
3. There are a total of 16 references to the war in Vietnam but they never seem to coalesce into a John Wayne moment. Do you feel the author is pussy-footing around the war issues? Would you appreciate more blood and guts and less delayed stress?
4. What do you think of the author's treatment of women? Don't you think that Gloria Cummings and bk mitchell are foxes? How long would you have allowed Jackie to chase you around the conference table before you capitulated?

5. What do you think of the author's treatment of men? Wouldn't you like to own an Amoco Station and a Chicken Delight like Joe Richards and chase redneck women all day? Shouldn't Jackie go after a real man like Joe Richards rather than a lifer like John McDowell?

6. There is a general assumption through the narration that a facination with automobiles is a viable substitute for a facination with sex. Discuss the automobile as a sex substitute. Compare with baseball and fishing.
7. In Chapter 4 John's brother Marty is faced with the dilemma of fetching his hamburger and fries from the service ledge at the VFW dining room. In the process he must rearrange the three remaining platters to give the impression of the original four platters. Do you feel this is a lost art?
8. As with most modern women, Jackie has difficulty fitting it all in. Discuss Jackie Cessna as a role model for the modern woman on the move.
   Hint: "Jackie is running out of time. She mumbles as she counts the minutes and hours on her fingers. 'The tow truck? The Amoco station? The Beer Blast?' She allows ten minutes to dress, five minutes into Sykes Landing, forty-five minutes for Marty's hamburger, forty-five minutes to get the tow truck and yank her baby out of the ditch, an hour into the District, an hour for her meeting with John McDowell, an hour back to Sykes Landing, two hours at the Beer Blast, an hour and a half to attack John McDowell, and an hour to Baltimore. She feels a rush of relief over her extremities. Yes, there is still time. She can have her $1,377,600 and her war stories at the Bernstein, Bernstein, Ribecoff, Hansen, and Miller wine and cheese party by mid-evening. Yep! Jackie Cessna is still a modern woman. She can fit it all in."

9. An earlier version of Wrap You Ass in Fiberglass contained four vehicles in the Chapter 1 car chase rather than the current Sunbeam and Motorcycle. Do you feel that the more tightly focused car chase allows us to concentrate on the character development rather than metal? The earlier version of Chapter 2 began immediately bashing tired old government lifers rather than the current tête-à-tête with the grandmother. Do you feel that the sensitive and caring grandmother passage detracts from the frivolity of lifer bashing?
10. What is your favorite bumper sticker? Don't you think "Jesus is coming look busy" and "God is coming and she is pissed" are all time greats? Don't you hate fishing bumper stickers?
11. Do you have problems reading a pink book? Would you feel less threatened if you knew that pink converys the raw latent power of unsanded, untinted fiberglass? Do you have problems with the periwinkle lettering?
12. The author's style has been described as an expansive minimalism, expansive because he runs on and on, and minimalism because he limits the narration to mundane happenstance. Does minimalism always have to mean "no furniture"? Does minimalism matter?
13. Later in the book, a gang of yuppie children engages a gang of redneck children in a far-ranging crabapple battle. (The archetypal crabapple battle is intended to appeal to each reader's childhood memories.) Did you ever feel like wailing the shit out of a womanizing redneck with a few well-placed crabapples? Discuss the role of crabapples in the war between the sexes.

14. The narrator consistently introduces controversial subjects such as drunk driving, child neglect, racism, drug addiction, and marital infidelity without pointing out the obvious improprieties. Don't you think the narrator has an obligation to the reader to identify inappropriate behavior? Discuss three examples of inappropriate behavior in the book. For extra credit, see if you can identify any examples of appropriate behavior.

George Miller © 2009

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