WTF is this?

I don’t think I enjoyed a single thing about it. ( )

Lise is thirty-four years old, “neither good-looking nor bad-looking”, who leaves her job in an accountant’s office for a holiday in the south. (It is never stated precisely where.) When we first meet Lise she is shopping for vacation clothes and it is obvious that something isn't quite right. She is on the point of buying a new dress until the salesgirl points out that the fabric is a specially treated so that won’t stain. Lise flies into a rage literally ripping it off before storming out of the shop and buying a garish outfit in another shop.

As we follow Lise on her holiday, it soon becomes apparent that she is looking for something, or more precisely, someone, some as-yet-nameless person who will fulfil her deepest desires. She restlessly wanders through airports, shops, parks, and city streets, constantly searching.

It quickly becomes clear that Lise is not in any conventional sense looking for romance and companionship, what she is seeking is the man who will murder her, and when she finds him she will ensure that he does the job right.

‘She told me to kill her and I killed her. She spoke in many languages but she was telling me to kill her all the time. She told me precisely what to do."

But what exactly is 'The Driver's Seat'? Is it a crime story? A horror tale? A psychological drama?, A critique of feminism? A savage satire of a consumer culture in which we can shop for anything, even our own death? Is it “the indecent exposure of fear and pity, pity and fear.”?' All these are certainly present but what it certainly is, is a deeply disturbing and thankfully short read. It has a good opening but goes nowhere in the end and I found it quite boring. Not a bad read but definitely not a classic. ( )

Compelling and weird tale of woman planning her own murder and finding the right man to perform the deed. Spark's Catholic interests are suggested in this satanic story but who is the devil?

I like M. Kitchell's review below - the protagonist is "not a character, she is a concept." ( )

I enjoyed this book. It was a bit different from all the other stories I've read by Muriel Spark, darker and more morbid than what I am used to from her. In this story a woman takes a vacation from work and makes all sorts of bizarre preparations as she is leaving, pissing off people along the way and acting so odd that no one can quite figure her out. She's on a mission, and has her victim in her sights, even though she does not seem to know what he even looks like. The ending is rather clever, I thought, and the story reminded me a bit of the sorts of twists Stephen King writes. ( )

Intense, compact study of an unbalanced 34-year-old woman who will wind up murdered, as laid out at the beginning. A relentless death spiral, likened to The Blind Owl and The Turn of the Screw. Spark's pick of all her books. ( )