Mountain Devil

Recommend: Yes.

There are particular characters that leap off the page. Eccentricities that spring to mind: Patrick Bateman’s multipage discourses on contemporary music that break up chapters of casual slaughterings in American Psycho; John Grant’s alcohol-induced mental weakening in Wake in Fright; and the striving desperation of Cassandra in Cassandra at the Wedding. I now add Muriel Spark’s deranged, yet totally endearing, protagonist Lise to that list.

Lise is fucked up and completely unashamed about it. I love her. She has mental breakdowns at work. She stares strangers directly in the eye for an insanely uncomfortable amount of time. She wears intensely garish clothing with absolutely no regard for what other people think. She’s in her mid-thirties, with total Slim Shady energy.

And every single person is a Slim Shady lurkin’
He could be working at Burger King, spittin’ on your onion rings
Or in the parkin’ lot, circling, screaming, “I don’t give a fuck!”
With his windows down and his system up

The Driver’s Seat was published in 1970, so it’s hardly surprising I loved it. What is it about this decade? Everything I read from the 70s feels so well supported plot-wise and so self-assured. These authors had vision and talent.

I thought this novel was funny and pacy and relatable. It’s acerbic, in a way that I associate more with the modern day than fifty years prior. Scenes are so crisply shown. There are two scenes in the novel’s opening – one in a dress-shop and one aboard an aeroplane – that couldn’t have been written better.

The very small supporting character cast that surround Lise are nearly all hilarious, and so sharply observed by Lise. I couldn’t get enough of the macrobiotic-obsessed Enlightment Leader (ie. Bill) that she is stuck next to on the plane.

‘You can eat mine too,’ says Bill. ‘I stick as far as possible to a very sensible diet. This stuff is poison, full of toxics and chemicals. It’s far too Yin.’

‘I know,’ said Lise. ‘But considering it’s a snack on a plane-‘

‘You know what Yin is?’ he says.

‘Well, something sort of like this – all bitty.’

‘No, Lise,’ he says.

‘Well it’s a kind of slang, isn’t it? You say a thing’s a bit too yin…’; plainly she is groping.

‘Yin,’ says Bill, ‘is the opposite of Yang.’

I knew nothing about this novel before reading and I recommend that approach.

I’ll be re-reading The Driver’s Seat at sometime in my future. I don’t know when. I don’t know where. But I am not done with this book.