The Perfect Vehicle: What It is about Motorcycles | 
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
In a book that is "a must for anyone who has loved a motorcycle" (Oliver Sacks), Melissa Pierson captures in vivid, writerly prose the mysterious attractions of motorcycling. She sifts through myth and hyperbole: misrepresentations about danger, about the type of people who ride and why they do so. The Perfect Vehicle is not a mere recitation of facts, nor is it a polemic or apologia. Its vivid historical accounts--the beginnings of the machine, the often hidden tradition of women who ride, the tale of the defiant ones who taunt death on the racetrack--are intertwined with Pierson's own story, which, in itself, shows that although you may think you know what kind of person rides a motorcycle, you probably don't.
Amazon.com Review
"From my mother I learned to write prompt thank-you notes for a variety of occasions," Melissa Holbrook Pierson writes. "From Mrs. King's ballroom dancing school I learned a proper curtsy and, believe it or not, what to do if presented with nine eating utensils at the same place setting.... From motorcycles I learned practically everything else." Pierson, an intellectual New Yorker, is open to her own contradictions--she is bold and fearful, a motorcycle-crazed poet with a Ph.D., and these seeming incompatibilities are what make this book so good. She can write equally well about the visceral pleasures of riding and about the pains of heartbreak or her own displeasure with her fears. This is the motorcycle memoir for those who are sick of memoirs--or motorcycles. It is a book for people who don't know what the big deal is about riding, or why the Guggenheim Museum in New York, in a swirl of controversy, would exhibit motorcycles as works of modern art. "Riding on a motorcycle can make you feel joyous, powerful, peaceful, frightened, vulnerable, and back out to happy again," Pierson writes, "perhaps in the same ten miles. It is life compressed, its own answer to the question, 'Why?'" --Maria Dolan
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Customer Reviews:
• No Gas 11 October, 2008
I was prepared to love this book: it's the story of an overthinking new motorcycle rider just like me, but unfortunately it reads like a combination of an extended airline magazine article and a series of diary entries with all the good bits cut out.
The influence of Pierson's husband, writer Luc Sante, is found in the many historical sidebars, but these lack the narrative flow and focus on personal interest that make Sante's writing so compelling. I found them to read like barrage of factoids.
Not enough facts are present when Pierson injects information about her personal life. I appreciate her writing honestly about heartbreaks, but there is little introspection on why things went wrong and what her role was in it, other than that her family was not affectionate . She meets Luc and a sentence later they are married.
Often the language she uses sounds overconstructed, phrases like "loath even though I am, to share my toilette with arachnids". Who talks like this? It's writing for effect, rather than writing honestly. Yet Pierson has an honest important story to tell: "I also worked on trying to make peace with a secret, not too conscious wish to find someone who would take care of my-bike-and-by-extension-me, because I discovered in this a dangerous futility that only served to keep alive in me a pervasive sense of incompetence."..."I began to sense that my motorcycle was again trying to tell me something, this time something ancient and wise....'Captain your own ship'. Ah thanks." (p. 182, paperback).
That's the emotional core of the book and it never gets developed. In it's place we get pages of reprinted letters from the Moto Guzzi National Owner's Club News. In the end "The Perfect Vehicle" takes a wrong turn.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2NPB2LQYZWCTB
• Starts & Ends W/5 Stars, But It's 2-3 Stars Everywhere Else 10 October, 2007
The first writing in this book (the Forward) is worth the price of admission. If it stayed at that level, it'd be "off the charts great" ... up there with "Eat, Pray, Love".
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
In the Forward (and the Postscript, for that matter), her writing is concise, poetic, wonderous ... it is art. And it's about the motorcycle - exactly what the title promises it will be. It is simply awesome.
But from there on, she takes more twists and turns than her favorite ride. And they don't really live up to the title or its subtitle. Instead of addressing "the Perfect Vehicle" or "What it is about Motorcycles", it addresses Melissa's own journey.
And in this, I feel like she cheated us. She might have more aptly entitled it "Motorcycles, Men, and Me". And - even with that - it could be a good story. But that tight, crisp, clean writing in the Forward is not present throughout much of the rest of the book. It is more flowery, rambling, unfocused, and off-point from the title. This is where it dips to 2 Stars.
She also tends to spend a lot of time grinding an axe about her experience of being a FEMALE rider in what she perceives to be a Man's realm. But then again, maybe that points out to a dated book (she's relating experiences from the mid 90s). This is maybe 3-star writing.
I've been motorcycling for only 4 years. I got started in Thailand when a woman from German talked me into motorcycling with her through the Golden Triangle area along the Burma-Thai border. Now, when I bike in Idaho, often as not at least 1/3 of the riders I'm with are women. They are on Beemers, Harleys, Yamahas, Suzukis ... and this is IDAHO. Not exactly what you'd call a liberal state.
The history section is relatively interesting. But and that's where it stays at a relatively modest "3 Stars".
Ultimately, I found this book to be a major disappointment - mostly because it started off GREAT. If you want to get the best this book has to offer, simply read the Forward and the Postscript.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2I4JXMFW2582I
• Women Rider? New Rider? Seasoned Rider? This Works! 04 December, 2007
Good book. As a seasoned rider who generally only reads technical moto books, I'm learly of the "this is what I think about the motorcycle" type books. Melissa did not just write about it, she lived it and you can tell by the way she writes about it. She took a personal journey that more and more women are taking these days and I hope they read her to see how she did it. New riders shoudl take a look and you seasonsed riders might get a kick out of seeing her develope into a real rider. I did but it was a long plane ride. The book and the plane ride were over before I knew it. Good job Melissa.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1364WTAK7LOPW
• The Best 01 August, 2008
One of the best motorcycle books I have ever read. It puts into words my feelings of riding in a way that I cannot. Not that well known, but definately worth the money. You will enjoy this book if you enjoy riding motorcycles.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3P1508PZ0UADD
• The Perfect Bike Book 07 January, 2008
I recently finished The Perfect Vehicle, and I am extremely impressed. Not only is it very well written; the author isn't afraid to talk about things that many people don't mention, such as fear, and the special problems that motorcycling women still face. She is equally lyrical about the joys of riding. I recommend it wholeheartedly, and I've already lent out my copy. After reading this book, I'm looking harder at Moto Guzzis, too (the author's bike).
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3G4FIUEPUP9ZJ
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