The Driver's Seat

Muriel Spark’s novel The Driver’s Seat (1970) utilizes the present tense, giving the story a sense of urgency even though there is very little action.

Lise is shopping for a colorful dress to wear on a trip on which she is about to embark. The sales clerk informs her that the dress she is trying on is made with a special material that resists stains. Enraged, Lise shouts at the sales clerk that she knows how to eat properly and is insulted that the sales clerk would imply she needs stain-resistant clothing. Lise leaves the shop and returns to work. At her office, her boss suggests she take the afternoon off. Lise laughs and then bursts into tears.

Lise leaves the office but, instead of going home, resolves to have the best trip her life. She goes to a different clothing store, selecting another colorful dress and a coat in clashing colors. She pauses on her way out of the store to eavesdrop on the sales clerk telling her colleague about the glamorous sale she just made; Lise feels good. She goes home to her impersonal and sparsely furnished apartment.



The next day, she gets up and, wearing her new clothes, leaves for the airport, neglecting to give her keys to the porter when he offends her. At the airport, imagining she is making quite a scene in her dress, she stops to have short conversations with several people. She purchases a book. In line to board the plane, she sees a well-dressed businessman. She stays close to him even as a second man follows her. When she sits down next to the businessman on the plane, he cringes away from her as if terrified. The other man accosts her, introducing himself as Bill and propositioning her. Lise notices a third man sitting behind her and acts as if they have a secret connection, showing him the cover of her book in an ostentatious way. She tells Bill she thought the man behind her was “the right one,” but was mistaken.

When the plane lands, Bill gives Lise his hotel and kisses her, startling her. At her own hotel, the rooms seem very cheap, and Lise fixates on and complains about a missing glass. She unpacks and then packs everything up again. She uses a map to locate a park with something called the Pavilion. She leaves the hotel and shares a taxi with an older woman named Mrs. Fiedke, who is surprised when Lise deliberately slips her passport behind the seat. Lise tells Mrs. Fiedke that she is meeting her boyfriend, although she cannot tell her what he looks like. In the ladies room, Mrs. Fiedke falls asleep. Lise goes off to shop and then meets Mrs. Fiedke again. Mrs. Fiedke tells Lise about her nephew Richard; Lise decides Richard would be her type. The two women deprecate men; Lise says they are cowards, and Mrs. Fiedke denigrates the modern type of man who seems to want all the privileges of women as well as men.

Encountering a demonstration, the two women watch as police disperse it using tear gas. Lise finds a hired car and gets in. The driver, Carlo, offers to take her to the hotel. He tries to put his hands on her, and Lise takes control of the car, leaving him behind. At the hotel, she goes to the ladies room to examine her purchases, then leaves her keys behind. In the hall, she meets a man she decides might be the right one. She speaks to him in a bizarre manner, and then decides she was mistaken; he is not right.



She meets Bill. In a car with him, he once again touches her, telling her that he requires an orgasm every day for his health and hasn’t had one yet. Lise orders the car to take them to the Pavilion, a restaurant that is closed for the evening, and examines the building. Growing impatient, Bill assaults her, attempting to rape her, but she gets away from him and runs away.

Lise returns to her hotel. She meets Richard, realizing he is the man she sat next to on the plane, the man she has been looking for. She tries to force him into the car she stole from Carlo. She tells Richard how she would like to be killed: She would like to be stabbed to death. At first, Richard is reluctant, but with her encouragement, he begins to stab her with increasing enthusiasm. He drives away even though he knows that he will be arrested by the police, imagining that their uniforms and badges will protect them from exposure to “fear and pity, pity and fear.”