Will I love The Driver's Seat?

The Scottish author Muriel Spark’s specialty was short, mordant, corrosive novels, the best known being, of course, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. This one, published in 1970, was among her most striking.

A repressed woman’s vacation during the free-loving sixties turns out to be a date with death she may have initiated: the question lingers after you finish.

It became a flawed yet fascinating 1974 film with Elizabeth Taylor at her most—literally and figuratively—exposed.

Is there a madder moment of madness in all of literature than that of The Driver’s Seat’s protagonist Lise?

A firecracker of a novel (most editions come in under one hundred pages of breakneck-speed story), and yet a whole firework display of literary techniques (most startlingly a third chapter opening prolepsis – flashforward – to the suicidally-invited murder of Lise). It’s the technique itself that is the star. Is this satire, parody, comedy? Can comedy be so dark?

Spark noted both that this book was an existential ‘whydunnit?’ without feeling the need to provide us with anything so simplistic… show more.

The Driver's Seat is one of the most powerful and tightly-wound books I've ever read about being alone in a strange city, unraveling both within and without at the same time. The fever pitch that grows throughout this short text is unmatched in my reading—it strikes a tone entirely unto itself.

For good reason, Spark herself claimed the novel a personal favorite. Set in Northern Europe, Driver’s Seat is a fascinating portrayal of a woman gone mad. Adapted into a movie directed by Giuseppe Griffi, the film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol, a movie I highly recommend after the book is read. This cult classic may have been written in the late ‘60s, but it superbly touches on issues relevant today. Everything from travel, fashion, sexual opportunity, trendy diets, religion, and personal freedom, Spark brilliantly lures readers into a world of isolation despite all the luxury amenities people had access… show more.