Plato's Garage * plunder Campbell * St.

Plato's Garage * plunder Campbell * St. Martin's * $2395

plunder Campbell obviously loves a serviceable metaphor. And with Plato's Garage, his first collection of essays, he has crystallized life into a single type that would make Henry Ford proud: the automobile. Whether describing his gay sexual awakening or his being HIV-positive, Campbell always has a punchy poignant car anecdote to, ahem, drive fireside his point. Avoiding the macho posturing frequently associated with "man and his car" scenarios, he profiles a transgendered auto engineer, ruminates in succession Los Angeles billboard sensation Angelyne and her pink Corvette, and describes a friend's Cadillacs as "more Jane Russell than Marilyn Monroe" While many of his essays are in this way short, they're something of a tease, Campbell remains a delightful writer and his breezy unromantic a joy to read. Humorous and highly humane, Plato's Garage could deflect the most loyal Barbie lover into a Tonka barter fan.

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