Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart

Good story telling can make you forget about the oppressive heat at the tube station and relax you while you are waiting outside the dentist's office. Chris Stewart's first book, Driving Over Lemons is the sort of story that will make you miss your stop to keep on reading and forget you're even at the dentist. From the first line, he makes you a guest in his world, driving around the thorny Alpajurras with a pushy woman named Georgina, looking for a place to buy.

What follows is the hilarious and heart warming account of Stewart and his wife on their beat up farm, El Valero, where they must learn to adapt in order to fully enjoy life in rural Spain.

Lifting The Romantic Veil

There is something very romantic about packing up your life and moving to the Spanish mountains, but it carries an equal weight of impossible tasks that prevents 99% of people from doing it. El Valero sounds like a lovely place to have that dream, but rather inhospitable to live (putting it mildly), especially for someone with such limited farming experience - there is no running water, electricity, road access and its previous owner (Pedro) won't leave. But it seems as though Chris and Ana thrive in novice situations (even the act of writing Driving Over Lemons was a 'first' for Chris). From bits you gather in the book, you find out that he and Ana have some experience sheering sheep, working on boats, gardening, playing music (Chris was one of the core members of Genesis) and other odd jobs. All of these skills serve them along the way.

There is nothing fancy or pretentious about the way he describes the Spanish countryside, yet the pictures he paints for you with words is exquisite. You get a feel for the scenery, the texture of the landscape, how it smells and what it feels like to be there, struggling against the elements and meeting a cast of incredibly interesting people.

A Likable Guy

For any good story to really make an impact on its audience, there needs to be a likeable protagonist. Chris is friendly, trusting to a point of fault, hilariously introspective and respectful of others. He's the perfect everyman - at times he will remind you of an old school buddy or someone you know well. You just really can't help rooting for him and his wife, Ana - especially once they both move to the farm.

It is in the dialogue with other characters that Stewart really displays his skill as a writer - he captures the local vernacular and culture without imitating accents or isolating readers with long passages in Spanish. He makes you feel like you're there, reading the subtitles of a good movie and getting it all. Above his ability to describe characters and dialogue, there is great insight to his threading of events and personalities into the fabric of the story. Every person is a complete character, with a role to play, and everyone carries their weight - even if that just means being lazy or dishonest. The most obvious example is Pedro, who takes full advantage of the Stewart's naivety and is still captured with empathy.

A Superb Cast

Domingo, the story's sheepish hero and the Stewart's neighbour, cannot be a work of fiction. He's just such a cool, calm and eccentric character - you can't make him up. In between helping Chris and Ana build their house and get their farm into a working state, he introduces them to the local community. Without Domingo, Driving Over Lemons would not be the story that it is. A scene that really struck me was the Matanzas, or Pig Killings - the sort of event that could seriously offend sensitive readers. But Stewart manages to be a respectful bystander, soaking up the cultural collisions caused by living in a foreign country. The chemistry between himself and Domingo makes a potentially impossible scene quite riveting.

A Great Story

As far as the plot goes, he drives the story at a comfortably mellow pace (quite fitting for a book set in a part of the world where nothing happens in a hurry), making a flavoursome meal of the story. It is not a long book, but there is remarkable growth throughout the 280 pages. You don't need to know anything about farming, the Alpajurras or even speak Spanish to appreciate this read - I'm sure Chris hardly did when he first moved to El Valero. That's what makes it such a great travel companion - you experience the growth with them. From being total outsiders, to the construction of their home (both literal and figurative), to the birth of their daughter, Cloe, the story of Chris and Ana is one that will be told through reprints for many years to come.

ET Rating: 8/10