The year 1955 was a deadly one in racing. Among the casualties: 80 spectators killed by a wreck at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This book looks at the events of the year, placing them within their social context.

On the one hand, we think of the 1950's as the era of Ozzie and Harriet, with the rise of the middle-class suburban way of life. But there was another side to that glossy picture; thousands of men, many of whom had seen military action, were restless and seeking thrills. The growth of automobile racing -- a sport which, at that time, had as much as a 50 percent mortality rate among professional drivers in some divisions -- was a part of that, as was the birth of rock 'n' roll and a new type of movie star.

I wonder how many people today realize that actor James Dean was actually on his way to a sports car race in which he planned to participate, breaking in the engine of his new Porsche 550 Spyder, when he had his infamous fatal auto wreck?

This book is different from most non-fiction in that it employs "faction" -- as the author explains, "a first-person, unidentified narrator is a witness to much of the action in an attempt to more intimately link the reader to the real ... events. . . the events are as factual as I could make them, nonwithstanding the passage of time and the blurring of memories." One other fictinonal character is used, who is described an "amalgam of the wealthy, privileged women who followed the sport of automobile racing during that period."

I'm not sure that the faction device helped the story any -- the events were interesting enough in their own right -- but I didn't find it too distracting. I was distracted by some of the grammar/typing errors which abounded in this book. ( )