Notes From The Midnight Driver

“I was fully convinced on that particular Friday evening last September that stealing my mom’s car and storming my dad’s house was a brilliant plan.”

Alex illustrates his immaturity and lack of rational decision-making when he chooses to get drunk and take his mother’s car to go surprise his father, who has been dating Alex’s third-grade teacher. Alex’s sarcastic tone comes through in this section, as well as his narrative style: He consistently reflects on his poor decision-making through commentary about what he chose to do. This consistent reflection foreshadows Alex’s eventual growth as a character into someone who can think things through more clearly before taking action.

“I was avoiding pretty much all human contact, with a special focus on ignoring my dad’s attempts to communicate with me.”

Alex’s continued avoidance of his father illustrates both a lack of maturity and Alex’s sadness and anger over his parents’ divorce. Alex struggles to figure out why his parents are separated, and, worse, why his father has chosen to move on with Alex’s third-grade teacher. This level of avoidance increases after Alex’s drunk driving accident; Alex only begins to move on after being forced to work with Sol.

“Be careful how you treat people, because you never know when you’ll need their help later on.”

Though Alex doesn’t realize it at the time, this critical piece of advice will be an important learning lesson for him later on. In many of Alex’s interactions with peers at school, Alex is ignorant to the ways that his behavior affects those around him. Many of his peers think of him as a careless, sarcastic person who isn’t worth getting to know. As Alex begins to grow, he alters this perception, but not without some hard moments of realization of how he has treated people in the past.

“But between this guy’s tone and the unfamiliar words he was throwing in, I was too stunned and confused to speak.”

Despite Alex’s sarcastic exterior, he is relatively insecure in many of his interactions, wondering what to think and how to act. Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than in his early interactions with Sol, as he struggles to figure out how to respond to this rude elderly man. As Alex develops his sense of self, he gains confidence and is more capable of bantering with Sol and expressing his own needs.

“The point of the program is that by working through the challenges and difficulties of serving others, you will ultimately be serving yourself.”

In this early message from Judge Trent, she challenges Alex to see his time with Sol as a learning opportunity for himself. Alex doesn’t understand this idea for much of the novel—he continues to look at his service as something he is doing for others, rather than for himself. It is only when Alex sees what he has gained from his interactions with Sol that he forms an authentic relationship with him.

“Laurie and Sol were bantering, or sparring, or flirting, or something. Not that I cared, aside from the creepiness. Since she and I were just friends, after all. And what did Sol mean, exactly, about the way I looked at her?”

Alex struggles to understand his potential feelings for his best friend, Laurie. This is an important underlying conflict of the novel as Alex avoids looking at Laurie to keep from exposing any romantic interest for her. To some extent, Alex tries to keep his romantic interest hidden from even himself. Alex’s complex feelings are typical of a teenager; Sonnenblick shows through Alex’s process how it is possible to more astutely understand one’s own feelings.

“I concentrated so hard on not concentrating that I didn’t hear Sol being wheeled in behind me.”

Many of Alex’s difficulties in learning to play music have to do with his initial inability to lose himself in the melody and rhythm. As he develops as a musician, he hones his ability to “not concentrat[e],” which allows him to play with greater ease. In this first moment that Alex gets into music in this way, he loses touch with the world around him, which also allows Sol to see Alex playing guitar in a genuine way. 

“What’s important is that I’m trying to be your father, and you aren’t letting me.”

Alex’s avoidance of conflict means that he has been ignoring his father’s phone calls and emails for weeks, leaving his father frustrated. Despite Alex’s father’s intense assertion that Alex isn’t “letting” him be a father, Alex does not soften towards his father after this interaction. The depth of Alex’s anger keeps him from being able to understand his father’s position and from being able to sympathize for his father beyond thinking of him as old. 

“The thought occurred to me that maybe life would be better if I had been born without a tongue.”

Alex’s burgeoning maturity allows him to consider that his sarcastic behavior is not always a positive personality trait, and that he could perhaps choose to respond less derisively to the people around him. Alex’s consideration of this doesn’t lead him to immediately begin being kinder to the people around him, but it does mark a shift in his behaviors and his internal thinking. 

“You’re not a volunteer? I’m your sentence? I’m your PUNISHMENT?”

For much of the first half of the text, Alex considers his time with Sol as a gift; yet when Sol discovers that Alex has been “sentence[d]” to work with him, it rocks their relationship. Alex has to consider that he had been previously thoughtless as to how Sol might interpret their time together. This prompts a significant shift in Alex’s choices and behaviors as he attempts to repair the damage he has done by avoiding telling Sol about why he is working at the nursing home.

“I had a question, too: What was my dad doing here with my mom at two A.M.?”

On New Year’s Eve, Alex’s parents rekindle their romance and spend the night together; Alex receives this news with great difficulty, stressing over what it means and why it is happening. In some sense, Alex’s parents are behaving like teenagers, while he is still wrestling with the fall-out of their divorce. Yet Alex is not able to express all of his feelings about this to his parents, instead avoiding conversation the next morning at breakfast and continuing to make short, sarcastic comments.

“Perhaps it would have been a good idea to ask how he knew so much about this stuff.”

With an increase in Alex’s maturity comes an increase in the amount he reflects on his behavior. At this mid-point in the novel, Alex begins realizing that he has not asked enough questions of Sol, yet hasn’t developed the capacity to do so yet. Through his self-absorbed lens, Alex cannot see that Sol might have experiences or knowledge that would be useful to Alex’s own context, so he doesn’t ask.

“Until what? Until I develop mental telepathy like you guys have?”

In this quote, Alex displays his immaturity regarding musical practice: He accuses Steve and Annette of being good at playing because they have “mental telepathy.” This is a critical learning moment for Alex. He needs to realize that Steve and Annette’s talents come from working hard and practicing daily, not from some gifted capacity for telepathy. As Alex changes his thinking about musical ability, he becomes more dedicated to his playing, and, in turn, becomes a stronger guitarist.

“I could see staying together for life with somebody who cared about me that much.”

In this powerful reflection on what she might want from a relationship, Laurie reveals an underlying thread of the novel: the reasons for successful versus unsuccessful relationships. The daughter of separated parents, Laurie wants to believe that there is a measure of how much someone cares that could lead to a long-lasting relationship. This is a vital question for a young person who is dealing with parents who are divorced as they wrestle with the potential reasons for their parents not staying together for life.

“And when I resolved all that tension back into the melody, I wasn’t mad anymore.”

Alex displays growth here both in terms of his emotional state and his musical capacity as he plays music in a new way during the second benefit concert. He works through his anxiety and anger by playing more intensely, feeling that he is more in touch with the melody and rhythm than ever before. Though Alex can’t resolve all of his emotional conflicts by playing the guitar, this is an important outlet for him as he finally learns how to experience music as a positive outlet rather than a source of frustration and embarrassment.

“Sol wasn’t exactly my friend, and he wasn’t ever going to be all right.”

Sol’s impending death leads Alex to reflect in profound ways about their relationship and the lessons Alex will take from Sol. Alex’s newfound understanding that Sol isn’t “exactly” his friend is in contrast to earlier sections of the novel when Alex believes that he is helping Sol. Alex realizes that Sol has acted, in many ways, as more of a mentor and teacher than a friend. Further, Alex begins coming to terms with the fact that this important figure in his life may pass away soon, which leads Alex to make new, more mature choices going forward.

“You’ve never asked me a thing about myself.”

Sol challenges Alex’s self-centered attitude late in the novel, forcing Alex to realize that he has missed numerous opportunities to learn from Sol. After this interaction, Alex takes his time with Sol much more seriously, asking detailed questions and listening more carefully. This is a vital shift in Alex’s thinking about other people, as well as his own ability to think outside of himself.

“Now I knew why Sol had gone ballistic over my little gnome episode.”

After learning about Sol’s wife’s death, Alex re-thinks their previous interactions, understanding the depth of Sol’s emotional reaction to learning that Alex had driven drunk. This helps change Alex’s thinking about the seriousness of his own behavior, as well as helping him understand Sol’s personality with more clarity. This also allows Alex to act with more empathy towards Sol in the final weeks of Sol’s life.

“She notices you, all right. And she notices you noticing her. You just don’t notice her noticing you.”

Sol provides this critical advice to Alex in one of their last conversations. Alex has been somewhat oblivious to what Laurie thinks of him, assuming that she is uninterested in him romantically. As a wiser outside perspective, Sol explains to Alex that he has been missing key signals from Laurie.

“You and he have quite a special relationship, young man.”

In this kind statement from one of the nurses at the home, Alex receives important positive feedback about the hard work he has done to build this relationship with Sol. Though it hasn’t been easy for Alex to get to know Sol, he eventually builds something “special,” in part because he has refused to back down from Sol no matter how cranky Sol gets. This relationship, as foreshadowed early on by the judge, benefits both Sol and Alex immensely, despite their vastly different circumstances.

“I sat down […] and started sorting through Solomon Lewis’s great disappointment.”

Alex inadvertently discovers the Judy Box, which contains mementos and photos of Sol’s estranged daughter, Judy. After looking at the box, Alex is motivated to support the judge in healing this relationship; more importantly, Alex decides to make efforts to heal his own relationship with his parents and to support Laurie in working with her mother. Sol’s “great disappointment” helps lead Alex towards his own positive emotional resolution.

“And nobody fights forever. Nobody.”

This powerful reflection on Sol’s end of life comes from a nurse at the home as she tries to explain to Alex what is happening. Alex thinks of Sol as a very tough person, so he has to reconcile that with what he knows of Sol’s impending death. This is a critical lesson for Alex in the novel.

“And I know I’ve been—uh—not so easy with the whole divorce thing.”

In a humble admission to his parents, Alex finally apologizes for his intense behavior regarding their divorce. This reflects several important learning experiences for him: He has grown more able to think about the needs of others, he has developed a sense of his own feelings and thoughts, and he has recognized the importance of positive family relationships. Through his reconciliation with his parents, Alex resolves one of the core tensions of the text.