Taking the Wall
JONIS AGEE

"From the first lap to the checkered flag, Taking the Wall is a great ride."
- Jimmy Vasser, 1996 CART Champion

". . . a stellar collection about blue-collar folk, their plucky and despairing relationships and their dreams of speed and glamour. . . . If this book were a movie, it would be a noisy Midwestern starring Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, and Sissy Spacek, with Martha Plimpton as the feisty young grease monkey working at the Glory to God garage, across from the Curl Up & Dye salon." - Publisher's Weekly

"Tender strains of compassion run through these stores of people who live on the edge of a world of compression ratios, jack men, and pit stops. Jonis Agee takes us beyond the fierce world of the racetracks where people pay for their mistakes and into the quieter world of their domestic lives where they face their humble longings and disappointments.
- Jim Heynen, author of The One Room Schoolhouse

As the engines roar and the green flag waves, these stories tear across their rural landscape with the energy of a Winston Cup race. Like W.P. Kinsella’s minor league ballplayers, Jonis Agee’s drivers, pit crews, mechanics, and their families live in small towns, eat at truck stops, and have a hard time keeping their dreams from destroying their lives. From the garage to the kitchen table, from demolition derby to nascar, Agee’s hapless heroes open our eyes as they take the wall.

The wildly popular sport of auto racing is a backdrop in these stories for exploration of the creative and destructive aspects of obsession. In farmhouses, mobile homes, and roadside trailer courts, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters all try to figure out how to keep their families running as smoothly as their cars. Taking the Wall is rich with details about racing and rural life, and richer yet in insight into that part of the human spirit that just doesn’t know how to quit. Agee takes a personal and compassionate look at a grab bag of individuals linked by obsession.