Driving the King

Written by Ravi Howard

Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White

A darling and brilliant new novel that explores race and class in the 1950s America.#160; The war is over, the soldiers are returning, and Nat King Cole is back in his home town of Montgomery, Alabama, for a rare performance. His childhood friend, Nat Weary, plans to propose to his sweetheart, and the singer will honor their moment with a special song. But while the world has changed, segregated Jim Crow Montgomery remains the same. When a white man attacks Cole with a pipe, Weary leaps from the audience to defend him - an act that will lead to a 10-year prison sentence. #160; But the singer will not forget his friend and the sacrifice he made. Six months before Weary is released, he receives a remarkable offer: he will be Nat King Cole's driver and bodyguard. It is the promise of a new life removed from the terror, violence, and degradation of Jim Crow Alabama.#160; Weary discovers that, while in Los Angeles is far different from the deep South, it is a place of discrimination, mistrust, and intolerance where a black man - even one as talented and popular as Nat King Cole - is not wholly welcome. An indelible portrait of prejudice and promise, friendshit and loyalty, Driving the King is a daring look at race and class in pre-Civil Rights America, played out in the lives of two remarkable men. #160;

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781622316076

Ravi Howard

Ravi Howard won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for his novel Like Trees, Walking. He was also a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hurston/Wright Foundation, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the New Jersey Council on the Arts. As a sports producer with NFL Films, he won an Emmy for his work on Inside the NFL.

Reviews for Driving the King

[altima313 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Usually after reading a novel, I wait a few days afterward to let the characters marinate in my head and reflect on the scenes that the story created for me to see. However, this story didn’t stay with me. It was a good story as I listened (Audio), but the characters went away quickly. Leaving me with the feeling that his writing and storytelling wasn’t at it’s very best.“Driving the King” is a novel that should be classified as more of a piece of literary fiction than a historical account of the Jim Crow south during the civil rights movement era. It is really the story of a fictional character, Nat Weary, the protagonist whom is sent to prison for 10 years of hard labor after saving Nat King Cole from a racist attacker who rushed the stage during a concert in Montgomery and then serves as the singer’s personal driver for a number of years. The author does what should have been done by not focusing on the life of the attacker within his novel. Nat King Cole is more or less a minor character in this novel. Readers should be aware it is fiction inspired by fact and not an accurate chronology of Nat King Cole's life. He brings together fact and fiction and changes the particulars of the latter to suit his timeline and the creation of the fictional character of Nathaniel Weary. I can accept that Howard took liberties to exaggerate the historical account of Nat King Cole and other historical characters. Howard touches on the bus boycott of Alabama. He lightly mentions Claudette Colbert (a fifteen-year-old, was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama), in which if you don’t know the history behind this crusader, she was not the chosen one to spear the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, because she was a young unwed mother. They chose Rosa Parks 9 months later. Howard also strategically inserts other historical characters important to the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Almena Lomax, African American journalist and civil rights activist. Rosa Parks. Boxer Dynamite Jackson fought out of Santa Monica, California. He won the Heavyweight Championship of California during his career. It is also reported that he owned a Jazz Club in Los Angeles in the 1940s on Central Avenue called “Dynamite Jackson’s”.Howard penned about Nat King Cole becoming the first African-American performer to host a variety TV series in 1956. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge. None did; many national companies did not want to upset their customers in the South, who did not want to see a black man on TV shown in anything other than a subservient position. Although NBC agreed to continue footing the bill for the show until a sponsor could be found, star Nat 'King' Cole pulled the plug on it himself in its second season. In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. (IMDB)Howard’s story was an entertaining novel but not a great one. it suffered from the lack of an intriguing storyline in my view. “Driving the King” didn’t quite live up to its expectations of Nat King Cole and his music or his Jim Crow experiences in real life. However, Howard has a creative narrative, and I look forward to his next book.

[cosimas-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book has an interesting setup. At the start of the novel, Nat King Cole has come back to Alabama for the first time since being attacked by a mob while performing there years ago. On the heels of losing his show, Cole links up with the other Nathaniel, his driver and our fictional narrator. Nathaniel Weary is trying to bounce back after his recent release from prison, a harsh punishment brought about by his defending a childhood friend.

Told from Weary's perspective as he recalls Jim Crow injustices and Nat's friendship, the book spins a convincing behind-the-scenes tale about loyalty, the period, and people who lived through it all.

The story is more about Nathaniel Weary's life and his early history with Nat King Cole in the Jim Crow era than it is about the Nat King Cole himself. It took a little while for me to get into the story because the narrator's voice is unusual, and plus the narrative is nonlinear. It's a different kind of flow. Besides that snag, this book is an engaging read. 3.5 stars.

[musichick52 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We are taken back to 1950's, pre-Civil Rights era, United States. Nat Weary has the ring ready to propose to his girl during a Nat King Cole concert. White men storm the stage and begin to beat Cole and his band members. Weary vaults onto the stage from the balcony and saves Cole's life. In Alabama, this draws him a 10 year sentence in prison. When he get released, Cole hires him as his driver. Weary is then poised as witness to the discrimination of black in L.A. as contrasted to the South. This is a terrific portrayal of a snippet of history told from the eyes of a poor, southern, black man. My thanks to the author and Goodreads for a complimentary copy.

[onnaday · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Usually after reading a novel, I wait a few days afterward to let the characters marinate in my head and reflect on the scenes that the story created for me to see. However, this story didn’t stay with me. It was a good story as I listened (Audio), but the characters went away quickly. Leaving me with the feeling that his writing and storytelling wasn’t at it’s very best.“Driving the King” is a novel that should be classified as more of a piece of literary fiction than a historical account of the Jim Crow south during the civil rights movement era. It is really the story of a fictional character, Nat Weary, the protagonist whom is sent to prison for 10 years of hard labor after saving Nat King Cole from a racist attacker who rushed the stage during a concert in Montgomery and then serves as the singer’s personal driver for a number of years. The author does what should have been done by not focusing on the life of the attacker within his novel. Nat King Cole is more or less a minor character in this novel. Readers should be aware it is fiction inspired by fact and not an accurate chronology of Nat King Cole's life. He brings together fact and fiction and changes the particulars of the latter to suit his timeline and the creation of the fictional character of Nathaniel Weary. I can accept that Howard took liberties to exaggerate the historical account of Nat King Cole and other historical characters. Howard touches on the bus boycott of Alabama. He lightly mentions Claudette Colbert (a fifteen-year-old, was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama), in which if you don’t know the history behind this crusader, she was not the chosen one to spear the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, because she was a young unwed mother. They chose Rosa Parks 9 months later. Howard also strategically inserts other historical characters important to the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Almena Lomax, African American journalist and civil rights activist. Rosa Parks. Boxer Dynamite Jackson fought out of Santa Monica, California. He won the Heavyweight Championship of California during his career. It is also reported that he owned a Jazz Club in Los Angeles in the 1940s on Central Avenue called “Dynamite Jackson’s”.Howard penned about Nat King Cole becoming the first African-American performer to host a variety TV series in 1956. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge. None did; many national companies did not want to upset their customers in the South, who did not want to see a black man on TV shown in anything other than a subservient position. Although NBC agreed to continue footing the bill for the show until a sponsor could be found, star Nat 'King' Cole pulled the plug on it himself in its second season. In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. (IMDB)Howard’s story was an entertaining novel but not a great one. it suffered from the lack of an intriguing storyline in my view. “Driving the King” didn’t quite live up to its expectations of Nat King Cole and his music or his Jim Crow experiences in real life. However, Howard has a creative narrative, and I look forward to his next book.

[robynelee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a history teacher who just returned from studying Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement (often called the second reconstruction), I especially loved this audio book. Driving the King is another sad example of discrimination and racial hatred, even for the famous. This moving story of courage in the face of segregation and unrest, was lovely as an audio book, but would also be enjoyable to read.

[ozzer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ravi Howard uses some of the Nat King Cole’s story of to explore racism in America during the 50’s and 60’s. The first perspective is the Jim Crow south as viewed from Montgomery during the civil right bus boycotts. More enlightening is the more subtle forms of racism prevalent in Los Angeles at the time, especially in the entertainment industry. Cole experienced both overt (a cross was burned on his lawn) and covert, in the form of the cancellation of his television show due to lack of sponsorship notwithstanding his colossal success as an entertainer. Although Cole is a minor character in Howard’s novel, he does serve to demonstrate the prevalence of racism throughout America. Howard uses the fictional Nat Weary as his narrator. This Nat was Cole’s childhood friend who rescues him from a brutal beating at the hands of Southern Whites during a performance in Montgomery. For his efforts, Nat serves 10 years in prison. Howard skillfully depicts the brutality and mindless hard labor that existed in Southern prisons at the time. Upon his release, Nat moves to Los Angeles to become Cole’s driver. From the dual perspectives of a decade in prison and the Los Angeles entertainment industry, Weary has a bird’s eye view of various forms of racism prevalent in America at the time. By shifting between the two settings, Howard is able to use Weary’s observations to depict both subtle and overt forms.The plot is minimal with little drama but the writing is lyrical and the settings are well evoked. The storyline follows Cole’s decision to return to Montgomery to finish the interrupted concert. He plans to avoid the persistent civil rights tensions by delaying the announcement of the concert and choosing a black dominated venue. In actuality, Cole was not a political figure and never again performed in the South following his attack in Birmingham. The Cole character in the novel likewise is not involved in the civil rights movement, but Howard does portray him sympathetically by hiring Weary, returning to finish the concert and especially covertly visiting Weary’s inmate friends on a prison work gang. This is a lovely novel about racism in America but plays loosely with actual history for effect. With the exception of Weary, the characters in the book are not very nuanced. Most are stereotypical blacks and Southern whites.

[janiereader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am a fan of historical biographies and this title was no exception. Cole was an interesting character, a famous black man in an era when blacks had few rights. Imagine being popular enough to have a radio show, yet no one to sponsor him?The story tells the story of Cole's life and Nat Weary, an ex-con soldier who drives for the singer in the South. Great example of civil rights of the era, as well as a good story. Told in a leisurely pace and with strong characters the story goes back and forth telling the story of the 2 characters and is an interesting read.The audiobook was read a bit slowly for my taste but the narrator, Adam Lazarre-White has an interesting voice that matches well with the content of this title.

[samsattler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The 1956 onstage assault suffered by singer Nat King Cole in Birmingham, Alabama, made headlines around the world. Thankfully, the three men who attacked Cole at that event accomplished little more than knocking him to the floor before they were apprehended by policemen who were there to prevent just such an incident. King returned to the stage a few minutes after the assault and managed to finish his performance without further incident.This is the real world event that Ravi Howard uses as the centerpiece of his new novel Driving the King - even though he moves the event back about a decade and has it take place in Montgomery rather than in Birmingham. However, as alluded to in the book’s title, Driving the King is really the story of a fictional character who served as the singer’s personal driver for a number of years (Nat King Cole is, in fact, a relatively minor character in the book). Initially drawn together because they shared a first name, Nat Cole and Nat Weary were boyhood friends and classmates before King’s family moved out of Montgomery. And now that the famous Nat King Cole has come to Montgomery to do a show, Nat Weary has a favor to ask him. Weary wants Cole to help him propose to his girlfriend during the show – and the singer agrees to stop the show while Weary makes his move. But when a man jumps on stage and begins beating Cole, everything goes wrong. The proposal never happens, and Nat Weary, as a result of his aggressive defense of Cole, finds himself doing ten years of hard labor in one of Alabama’s harshest prisons. “The King,” though, never forgets what his old friend did for him. Upon Weary’s release from prison, Cole asks Weary to come to Los Angeles to be his driver and after much consideration Nat accepts the job. Driving the King is set in the pivotal period of race relations in this country. The book covers in detail the Montgomery bus strike of the period, and even includes a young Martin Luther King as one of its characters. It is a stark and vivid portrayal of Jim Crow Alabama, but it does not stop there, because Nat King Cole, as the first black performer with a television show of his own (15 minutes in length), suffered racial prejudice even in Los Angeles. (In the real world, a cross was burned on the LA lawn of King’s home by members of the Ku Klux Klan.) This is an ambitious novel – and it largely accomplishes what it set out to do. But, perhaps because so many of its characters are stereotypical (both blacks and whites), the book never fully draws the reader into the world as it was at that time. It just does not seem real. Nat Weary is an interesting character – and learning a bit about Nat King Cole’s personal journey is interesting – but I can’t help but feel that Driving the King could have been so much more than it is. And that’s a shame.

[brangwinn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fiction about the 1960’s is always enlightening for me. I grew up in the 60’s, sheltered in northern small town. With only three tv stations and poor reception, we were bystanders to what was happening in the south. Montgomery Alabama, Martin Luther King, the Bus Boycott had nothing to do with my life. It takes a novel 40 years later to show me that those were important to me. I’ve always loved Nat King Cole’s music, but I’m going to be listening to it differently from now own, grateful for those people who were strong enough and courageous enough to stand up for what their rights. It also helps me understand the PBS program on how black parents have to talk to their kids about an encounter with the police. We’ve still got a long way to go and there’s plenty of fodder now about equal rights for historical novels 40 years from now dealing with the same subject.

[mak1971-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The audio book provides a glimpse into the lives of Black Americans between the end of WWII and the early days of the civil rights movement. The story is told by Nat Weary, a Black soldier home after the war. He rescues Nat King Cole from attackers during a concert in Montgomery and is sentenced to 10 years hard labor for his efforts, while the white attacker is sentenced to three years. After his release from prison, Weary is hired as Nat King Cole'e driver/bodyguard. The story alternates between events in Los Angeles and Montgomery. Being Black in America during this time period, whether famous or not, is seen through Nat Weary's eyes and the stories of his friends and family as they become involved in the civil rights movement and the Montgomery bus boycott. I enjoyed the audio book and would recommend it to others.

[amy_j-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this both enjoyable and heart warming. This is a piece of historical fiction about time period that is rarely shown in the way Ravi Howard has shown it. The readers (or listener, as is my case) are brought into the world of the south during the beginning stages of the civil wrights movement as told through the eyes of a black man named Nat who, by a turn of events, is right in the middle of Nat King Cole's life.*I received a copy in exchange for an honest review

[carolee888 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed listening to Driving the King by Ravi Howard. I listened to the Nat King Cole Show with my family as a little girl. The more that I listened to the story, the more I wanted to hear the singer’s voice again. But this is a difficult review to write. The basic story is that Nat Weary who grew up and went to school with Nat Cole saved the singer’s life. Nat Cole was performing in Alabama and was attacked and Nat Weary fought the attacker off with a microphone. The white attacker got three years in prison and Nat Weary got 10 years. An obvious unjust decision. As a thank you, Nat Cole hires Nat Weary to be his signer and protector. I loved the stories the people in Matt Weary’s life who were fighting for civil rights. They were all inspiring. But it is a task to sift the truth from the imagined. The story seems to be mostly about Nat Weary but the real story by Ravi Howard is the fight for Civil Rights. The author made quite a few changes from the facts. I am very puzzled as to why. The city where the attack took place was changed, the number of attackers changed, the white supremacist organization was not named. I wonder why the truth was changed so much. I really feel that the truth about the attack was even compelling than the fiction.I remember the 50s, do you? I remember things that were wrong and I remember the encouragement to fit in. It is so strange that the Nat King Cole show only lasted one year because it seared such memory in past. Hope that you will either read or listen to this book and then take a little time to find out what the facts are. Does the story have more impact with changes or would the historical version been even more compelling?I received the audio version of Driving the King by Ravi Howard as a win from the LibraryThing but my thoughts and feelings are my own.

[mabith_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This review is based on the audiobook received through the ER program.This novel focuses on a fictional childhood friend of Nat King Cole, Nathaniel Weary, who stood between Cole and a white attacker during a show in their hometown of Montgomery, Alabama (a fictional event based on the attack on Cole in Birmingham in 1956). After beating the man Weary served ten years in prison. The book goes back and forth in time, from the night of the first show, to Weary's post-prison job of driving Cole in Los Angeles, to a second try at the Montgomery show.The changes in time were a little confusing at first, as years aren't stated, and it took me a little while to get Weary's timeline straight in my head. Otherwise, I thought the book was well done. It does a good job conveying the times, and the difficulty being a black musician in the United States, even when Cole's popularity was at its height. It also contrasts the bus strike in Montgomery with Cole's relative lack of politics (he continued to play to segregated audiences until negative comments caused him to join other entertainers boycotting segregated venues, the attack in Birmingham may also have forced him to face the fact that following the rules laid down by whites did not lessen their bigotry toward him).It's an evenly paced, but short book, about individual lives, choices, and consequences, without much plot. A solidly good read, though not in the 5-star realm for me. I do look forward to reading Howard's future novels.

[baystatera · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This powerful story -- centered on an actual incident of singer Nat King Cole getting assaulted by white men at the start of a concert in Alabama -- blends past and present (1950s) in the person of Nat Weary, the childhood friend who leaps onstage to help his friend and is imprisoned for ten years for hitting a white man. As the story opens, he has been serving as chauffeur/bodyguard to Nat King Cole in Los Angeles for six years and has just returned to his hometown of Montgomery for the first time since then, planning to surprise the African-American residents of the city with a reprise of the concert they were denied years earlier.Lyrically written, and very moving, the story touches on many aspects of the civil rights movement and is refreshingly free of the perspective of white characters. This is the author's second novel, after Like Trees, Walking.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 Though Cole lived in Montgomery until the age of four, his parents moved to Chicago where he was exposed to Chicago's burgeoning Jazz scene. Returning with his group to Montgomery to perform in a non segregated show, he was attacked. This is the story of Weary, a young man at the show, hoping to propose to his girlfriend and instead jumps down from the balcony and beats Cole's attacker with a microphone. Cole will perform one song and then, apologize to his audience and leave. In typical justice of the time, the white man who attacked Cole gets three years but Weary gets ten.A story that has the definite flavor of that time period in the South. The bus boycott, the pressure put on the blacks to keep them in their place, along with a heartfelt story of King, who never g[forgets a friend, and a young man who did more than just stand by.There is not author's note but I did look up and much of the information in this book is accurate. King did get attack but there was no weary to come to his aid, his TV show did get cancelled in Los Angeles after one year due to lack of sponsors.Good book with much worthy information and the invention of Weary was a good way to portray this changing time period in the South.ARC from publisher