A review by sarahmatthews
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

challenging dark tense fast-paced

The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

Read on audio

Narrator: Carol Anne Line 

Penguin Modern Classics

Pub. 1970, 107pp

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I’d heard that this is one of Muriel Spark’s most unhinged books, and , yes, it’s quite a ride! I decided to give it a go for the #1970Club and I went in rather cautiously, avoiding the introduction by John Lanchester which was sure to be full of spoilers.

And what did I find? Well, the story begins with Lise, a bored office worker in her thirties, leaving for a holiday. She’s bold and confrontational, with a brilliant scene in a department store where she buys some ill considered, mismatched clothes with garish colours. She pretends to leave then returns to listen in on the shop assistants talking about her, and she laughs loudly at them for her own amusement:

“The sales girl, thinking her customer is already on the escalator out of sight, out of hearing, has turned to another black frocked sales girl ‘All colours together!’ She is saying ‘those incredible colours! She said they were perfectly natural, natural… here in the north, she said’ her voice stops as she sees that Lise is looking and hearing. The girl affects to be fumbling with a dress on the rack, and to be saying something else, without changing her expression too noticeably. Lise laughs aloud, and descends the escalator.”

We then follow Lise back to her blank, impersonal apartment and off to the airport, causing a stir wherever she goes.

This is a difficult book to say too much about without spoilers but I’ll just say that it’s twisted, with a creeping sense of dread, and the ending will make you gasp!

Muriel Spark’s writing is superb as always, full of detail and phrases that stop you in your tracks. There are some quite fabulous characters and darkly comedic scenes, especially on the flight, that pull you into the story. I’ve read several books by Muriel Spark now and was not surprised to find that once I finished it I wanted to go back and start all over again to catch all that I’d missed.

Honestly, reading this one reminded me of how I felt when I read Crash by J. G. Ballard many years ago. Obviously a very different book but there was that same sense of questioning, disbelief, and wonder at the deranged imagination of the author. This book will stay in my mind for a long time and I’m still not quite sure what I think. There’s a feeling of dislocation as a reader, not quite being sure who’s consciousness we’re viewing from at times, and a growing understanding that something explosive is coming but being given just a few clues. Indeed, who was in the driver’s seat?

Books that are this unsettling can be refreshing, as long as, in this case, you’re in the mood for a warped story full of tension where the characters don’t share their thoughts and feelings and which isn’t all neatly tied up.

I read this for the #1970Club where readers choose books from a chosen year to read and review, hosted by bloggers Karen and Simon.