The Driver’s Seat
Lise flies south on holiday looking for a particular kind of man, and Spark tells you early how it ends.
Muriel Spark’s short novel follows a woman leaving her office job for a trip abroad, dressed conspicuously and behaving strangely, in search of someone she says she will recognise when she sees him. Spark gives away the ending in a flat aside partway through, so the tension is not what happens but the reader’s slow understanding of what Lise is arranging.
Recommended by 1 Person
Tyler Cowen
Muriel Spark, The Driver's Seat. If you like her at all, you will be entranced by this one. With a radical ending, as you might expect.
Source · March 2026
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