Arts & Entertainment

A Realistic Long Drive Home

County Traffic Investigator Helps Author Research New Novel.

In Tuxedo Park in South Orange, a residential neighborhood graced by large shade trees, a teenager died when his car slammed into a sycamore tree. There were no witnesses, other than a father and daughter who say the driver was speeding down their quiet street when he seemingly lost control.
It’s the type of case that Detective Arnold Anderson might have investigated when he was assigned to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office Vehicular Homicide Unit, a division of the Homicide Squad.
Only it didn’t happen.
The crash is the focal point of Long Drive Home, a work of fiction by author Will Allison, who lives in very same neighborhood as his latest novel. A book pick of Oprah, People and Parade, Long Drive Home (Free Press) reached the New York Times’ best seller’s list earlier this summer.
Will Allison, who critics praise as a rising talent, remembers the moment he got the idea for his second book: He was picking up the morning paper tossed outside his home, when a car came flying down the residential street.
“I was tempted to throw the newspaper at him. To scare him,” Allison said. “But I ending up scaring myself. I could have caused an accident.”
The fiction writer began asking questions: What if he had thrown the paper? What if the driver crashed? What if no one saw? What if his daughter saw?
It was a germ of an idea that took four years to write, centering on a fictional family, Allison’s neighborhood, the streets of South Orange, the route to his daughter’s private school in Montclair -- and the dogged detective who doesn’t quit on the case.
Enter Anderson, the retired detective who lives in Livingston. Anderson spent 15 years with the Irvington Police Department specializing in crash investigation. He joined the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office in 2000. At the time, Essex had the reputation of being the worse county in New Jersey for the number of deaths due to motor vehicle collisions.
“There were only three of us in that unit and we were working way too hard investigating an average of 80 fatal and an additional 50 to 60 non-fatal collisions that resulted in criminal charges,” Anderson said.
Anderson decided to do something to decrease those numbers. He began working with teens and launched the Smarter Drivers = Safer Streets, a program that combines math and physics with a CSI flair. The program was funded by the NJ Division of Highway Traffic Safety and won an education award from Rutgers University and the Governors Representative Award for Innovation in Traffic Safety Education Award.
He also helped win grant money for innovative traffic programs, such as the controversial “Cops in the Crosswalk” program. He also served on Gov. Jon Corzine’s Teen Driver Safety Commission that recommended the g (GDL) system to help young drivers gain experience under lower-risk conditions.
“The only way to learn how to drive is to drive,” Anderson said. “But real driving is not like a video game. In real-life driving, there is no ‘reset’ button and you only have ‘one’ life.”
When Anderson retired this past February, Essex County was no longer No. 1 in fatalities and the number of deaths was cut in half. But he's not done advocating for safe driving. "Motor vehicle crashes happen by choice, usually bad ones like drinking and driving, speeding, or texting while driving," Anderson said. He is currently working at Kean University, where he is developing K-12 traffic safety curriculum to meet new NJ Core requirements.
“Driving is the most dangerous thing we do everyday and we don’t think about it," Anderson said. “The consequences are like a chess game. If you make this move, what happens next?”
That’s what the writer Allison wanted to know. If his main character made one impulsive move, whatwould happen next?
He reached out to Anderson with his questions. “I was nervous the first time knowing that the detective part of him would ask if I had any reasons for asking these questions.”
And Anderson did wonder, until he learned more about the author (willallison.com), a South Carolina-born writer whose debut novel, What Have You Left, was selected for Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers, among other accolades.
Anderson’s role was to help the writer make the story “as real as possible within the framework of a work of fiction,” the detective said.
The result is what critics call a “beautiful novel … part detective story, part wrenching family drama.”
"In Long Drive Home, Will Allison reminds us how risky life is, how one bad move, one swerve from the right path, might set in motion a series of events that can destroy what we love," said writer Bonnie Jo Campbell.
"Will has written a wonderful book which hopefully will serve as a wake-up call to all drivers on the road to slow down and take a breath when they get behind the wheel of a moving missile," Anderson said.  "The scary part of this book for me is that while it was a fictional novel these events can and do happen to ordinary people all the time across America.
“To me, it almost feels like a public service message because it can happen to you,” Anderson said.


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