It’s been quite a while since I read anything by the great Muriel Spark, but I’ve had in the back of my mind for ages that I wanted to read her dark novella “The Driver’s Seat”. The trouble has been that I can’t actually find my copy; so in a fit of frustration and irritation recently I sent off for another copy and read it in a couple of great gulps – and what a brilliant book it turned out to be!!

“Driver’s” tells the story of Lise who, as the book opens, has been working in the same office for sixteen years and it’s obviously getting to her. After buying some brightly coloured and clashing clothes, she sets off abroad from the holiday of a lifetime. It’s not quite clear where she’s going or what she hopes to find – love, sex, adventure maybe? – but what is clear is that she’s in a febrile mental condition. The wrong response from a colleague or a salesperson sends her off into temper or hysterics; as she sets off for her journey she forgets to do important things; and her encounters with officials or fellow travellers are anything but normal. However disturbing this is, more alarming is the fact revealed very early in the narrative (so no spoiler to say this) that Lise is going to be murdered – although Spark does not reveal why or by whom…

The book obviously makes uncomfortable reading, as Lise is clearly a woman who needs help; she is fixated with meeting someone who is waiting for her, and every contact is potentially that person. She unnerves most of those she comes across, although an encounter with a macrobiotic food guru on the plane will feed into her destiny. She also spends much time with the widowed Mrs. Fiedke who is waiting for her nephew to arrive; although her treatment of this older woman is often cavalier, particularly when they get caught up in a demonstration. As the story proceeds, Spark allows us glimpses of Lise’s fate and the effect on those who have had contact with her; this foreshadowing is also unsettling. The end of the novella is troubling, if inevitable, and is one of those literary conclusions which has you wanting to go back to the start and read the book again, just to pick up the clever hints you might have missed.

At the Post Office they pay the fare, each meticulously contributing the unfamiliar coins to the impatient, mottled and hillocky palm of the driver’s hand, adding coins little by little, until the total is reached and the amount of the tip equally agreed between them and deposited; then they stand on the pavement in the centre of the foreign city, in need of coffee and a sandwich, accustoming in themselves to the lay-out, the traffic crossings, the busy residents, the ambling tourists and the worried tourists, and such of the unencumbered youth who swing and thread through the crowds like antelopes whose heads, invisibly antlered, are airborne high to sniff the prevailing winds, and who so appear to own the terrain beneath their feet that they never look at it.

Well – “The Driver’s Seat” is definitely Muriel at her Sparkian best, and I’m not sure I’ve read another book like this. There are so many possible elements packed into it; the state of Lise’s mental health; her obsession with meeting someone who’s waiting for her; the twists and turns of the narrative which lead her to her fate; and the shock of her eventual end. I was left wondering if we were to think that Lise willed her end on herself, and the question arises – who actually *is* in the driving seat of life, and should we be applauding Lise for being in control of her own destiny? From the very start of the book, her fate seems preordained and impossible to avoid – not that she wants to. No action she takes – and they often seem remarkably random – removes her from the path that will lead her to her death, which is unsettling for the reader…

I’m not going to say much more about the book, and I’ve deliberately made my comments a little vague so as not to spoil the book for any potential reader. What I will say it that it’s a dark, tense and very unnerving read which left me thinking about Lise and her eventual fate. It’s worth remembering that Spark was a convert to Catholicism, weaving religious themes into several of her works and I did wonder if underlying “Driver’s” were concepts of religious predestination – but I’m probably not qualified to explore that element. However, I’m glad I finally got to read this book; a reminder, if it was needed, what a brilliant and clever writer Spark was. A reminder, also, that I have many of her books still TBR – so there are lots of treats ahead!!