Notes From The Midnight Driver

Many of the important scenes in the novel revolve around characters learning to deal with conflict in healthier ways. Alex is the primary example of this, since he employs avoidance tactics frequently to keep from having his own feelings about the situations around him. For example, when he feels guilty and bad about his behavior in the beginning of the novel, he hides his face from his mother, because he doesn’t “want [his] mother to see that [his] eyes were welling up, too” (17). Similarly, Alex consistently avoids conflict by leaving the room or house when he gets in arguments, or makes sarcastic comments. Alex begins reflecting on this avoidance later as he thinks about New Year’s Eve, when he and Laurie “had a pretty good night being pals, as long as I didn’t think about my mom being out on a date when I wasn’t, or Sol evicting me from the home, or the warmth of Laurie’s legs on mine” (115). Although other characters also demonstrate avoidance and difficulty with conflict, Alex’s first-person narration allows readers to understand exactly how and why he is avoiding a conflict.

As the novel moves towards the conclusion, Alex begins illustrating healthier ways that people can deal with conflict. He apologizes, genuinely, to people who he has hurt, embracing Sol’s lesson that “real apologies don’t come with a BUT in the middle” (135). In addition, Alex begins thinking about what the appropriate way to deal with a conflict is as he watches Judge Trent and her father reunite. The conclusion of the text reflects Alex’s larger growth in terms of approaching conflict in healthy ways: He repairs his relationships with peers, support a friend through their death, and move towards having a more positive relationship with his parents.

Both central teenage characters in Notes from the Midnight Driver are dealing with the aftermath of a parental divorce. Alex and Laurie each experience anger and sadness after watching their parents’ divorce, though they express this in very different ways. On the one hand, Alex avoids his situation and uses sarcasm and rash behavior to keep from feeling; on the other hand, Laurie has emotional outbursts alternating with rational thinking about her situation. Sonnenblick provides these two different examples to explore the myriad ways that adolescents process and react to a parental divorce in their lives.

Both Alex and Laurie wrestle with the reasons that parents might get divorced, wondering about their parents’ feelings and choices. Alex is more reactionary, choosing to try to get revenge on his father by getting drunk and stealing his mother’s car. As his mother says, this kind of decision is “stupid and pointless” (20), yet it is Alex’s best effort to process his feelings about his father having a new relationship. In a similar way, Laurie struggles with her mother’s pregnancy with a new partner, commenting that her father “was also supposed to have stayed with my mom until death did them part, but we all know how that turned out” (30). The negative tone of Laurie’s comment mirrors the unpleasant feelings underling Alex’s behavior, as well as a certain level of confusion about adult relationships. Alex demonstrates this further when he questions who is to blame in his parents’ divorce. Like many adolescents dealing with parents who are separating, Alex and Laurie show a healthy amount of confusion, anger, and sadness in response to a difficult situation.