A dark, dazzling, surprisingly funny new collection of stories ("Masterly" --Adam Mars Jones, The Observer ; "A virtuoso performance" --Jane Shilling, The Sunday Telegraph ) about single women and wives in various phases of midlife--anxious mothers, besotted mothers, beset mothers--in a (futile) search for security and consolation. Helen Simpson's stories are short but by no means small. One story takes the Iraq war as its subject; another describes a smoker's reprieve from death by lung cancer; in another, a simple tale ...
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A dark, dazzling, surprisingly funny new collection of stories ("Masterly" --Adam Mars Jones, The Observer ; "A virtuoso performance" --Jane Shilling, The Sunday Telegraph ) about single women and wives in various phases of midlife--anxious mothers, besotted mothers, beset mothers--in a (futile) search for security and consolation. Helen Simpson's stories are short but by no means small. One story takes the Iraq war as its subject; another describes a smoker's reprieve from death by lung cancer; in another, a simple tale of home maintenance--a woman in a conversation with the carpenter replacing her door after a break-in--becomes a deftly sketched study of grief. In still another, Simpson manages the seemingly impossible--producing laughter at terminal illness and untimely death (this might be the first story in which the amputation of a limb provides a happy ending). And finally, the story entitled "Constitutional"--a pun on one of the word's meanings: a walk taken for the benefit of one's health--deals with memory, family, Alzheimer's, oak trees, pregnancy for the over-forties, stolen photographs, and crossword puzzles. Helen Simpson's stories move and disturb us as they light up the human gift for making the best of it-- whatever it is.
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Add this copy of In the Driver's Seat to cart. $3.41, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Vintage.
Add this copy of In the Driver's Seat to cart. $3.41, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Vintage.
Add this copy of In the Driver's Seat (Vintage Contemporaries) to cart. $29.87, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Vintage.
Add this copy of In the Driver's Seat: Stories (Signed First Edition) to cart. $40.00, new condition, Sold by Dan Pope Books rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from WEST Hartford, CT, UNITED STATES.
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Seller's Description:
New in New jacket. Signed by Author(s) New York: Knopf [2007]. First Edition. First Printing. Hardbound. New, in dust jacket, very fine/very fine in all respects. A pristine unread copy. Comes with mylar dust jacket wrapper. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. [c6] 0.0.
