The Last Taxi Driver

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Description

Hailed by George Saunders as "a true original--a wise and wildly talented writer," Lee Durkee takes readers on a high-stakes cab ride through an unforgettable shift. Meet Lou--a lapsed novelist, struggling Buddhist, and UFO fan--who drives for a ramshackle taxi company that operates on the outskirts of a north Mississippi college town. With Uber moving into town and his way of life vanishing, his girlfriend moving out, and his archenemy dispatcher suddenly returning to town on the lam, Lou must finish his bedlam shift by aiding and abetting the host of criminal misfits haunting the back seat of his disintegrating Town Car. Lou is forced to decide how much he can take as a driver, and whether keeping his job is worth madness and heartbreak.

Shedding nuts and bolts, The Last Taxi Driver careens through highways and back roads, from Mississippi to Memphis, as Lou becomes increasingly somnambulant and his fares increasingly eccentric. Equal parts Bukowski and Portis, Durkee's darkly comic novel is a feverish, hilarious, and gritty look at a forgotten America and a man at life's crossroads.

Product Details

Price
$25.95  $23.87
Publisher
Tin House Books
Publish Date
Pages
280
Dimensions
5.7 X 8.7 X 1.1 inches | 0.9 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781947793392
BISAC Categories:
Literary
Psychological
Biographical

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About the Author

Lee Durkee is the author of the novel Rides of the Midway. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Sun, Best of the Oxford American, Zoetrope: All-Story, Tin House, New England Review, and Mississippi Noir. In 2021, his memoir Stalking Shakespeare will chronicle his decade-long obsession with trying to find lost portraits of William Shakespeare. A former cab driver, he lives in north Mississippi.

Reviews

This book's a blast! A super-long shift in the life of a north Mississippi taxi driver makes for hilarious moments as well as lyrical ones. Durkee's Mississippi is entirely his own as he parades a line of passengers that are as colorful, sad, and strange as any in literature. A terrific novel by a terrific writer!--Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked, Letter
A wild, funny, poetic fever-dream that will change the way you think about America. Durkee is a true original--a wise and wildly talented writer who knows something profound about that special strain of American darkness that comes out of blended paucity, materialism, and addiction--but also, in the joy and honesty and wit of the prose, he offers a way out. I loved this book and felt jangled and inspired and changed by it.--George Saunders
By turns hilarious, angry and sweet, once again Durkee perfectly captures the mood of our time.--Square Books
The Last Taxi Driver is unpredictable, emotionally moving, and laugh-out-loud funny. Lee Durkee writes with honesty and deep insight. This book is filled with compassion. I loved it. The best book I've read in years.--Chris Offutt, author of Country Dark
The Last Taxi Driver is unpredictable, emotionally moving, and laugh-out-loud funny. Lee Durkee writes with honesty and deep insight. This book is filled with compassion. I loved it. The best book I've read in years.--Chris Offutt, author of Country Dark
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