Chevy in the Hole

A Novel

By: Kelsey Ronan

Narrated by: Janina Edwards

A gorgeous, unflinching love letter to Flint, Michigan, and the resilience of its people, Kelsey Ronan's Chevy in the Hole follows multiple generations of two families making their homes there, with a stunning contemporary love story at its center.

In the opening pages of Chevy in the Hole, August “Gus” Molloy has just overdosed in a bathroom stall of the Detroit farm-to-table restaurant where he works. Shortly after, he packs it in and returns home to his family in Flint. This latest slip and recommitment to sobriety doesn’t feel too terribly different from the others, until Gus meets Monae, an urban farmer trying to coax a tenuous rebirth from the city’s damaged land. Through her eyes, he sees what might be possible in a city everyone else seems to have forgotten or, worse, given up on. But as they begin dreaming up an oasis together, even the most essential resources can’t be counted on.

Woven throughout their story are the stories of their families—Gus’s white and Monae’s Black—members of which have had their own triumphs and devastating setbacks trying to survive and thrive in Flint. A novel about the things that change over time and the things that don’t, Chevy in the Hole reminds us again and again what people need from one another and from the city they call home.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.

Intriguing and insightful

This story and characters are very relatable to someone who grew up in the shadows of General Motors.

White woman writes about the African American experience

As A white male I recognize the hypocrisy of even leaving this review but I couldn’t even get 30% into this book. As a Flint Native I appreciated the setting and the way it was described. What I did not appreciate however is that this author, a white woman, chooses to write the story from the perspective of two generations of African American families. Flippantly writing about an experience and describing a group of people in generalized and stereotypical ways that seem to be based on experiences she herself knows nothing about. I couldn’t keep going as I felt clingy and uncomfortable and felt she should have been more mindful of her choice of words and perspectives