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The driver's seat
Muriel Spark
1970 · Literary fiction
How it reads
The driver's seat is literary fiction (psychological literary fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is eerie. It's atmospheric and uncanny, with a sense that something is wrong. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.
It's set in an international setting, in the present day, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, loss and grief and secrets. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is dark — no rescue, no neat bow. It's a short book. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something eerie
- you want a book that pulls you through
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
- you need a happy ending
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- literary fiction
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- international
- Setting: time
- contemporary
- Mood / feeling
- eerie
- Pace
- fast paced
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- identity, loss and grief, secrets
- Ending style
- dark
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- The HoleHiroko OyamadaShares: literary fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, contemporary setting
The Hole小山田浩子Shares: literary fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, contemporary setting
The fifth childDoris LessingShares: literary fiction, heavy and literary tone, dark ending, contemporary setting
The Elephant VanishesHaruki MurakamiShares: literary fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, contemporary setting
A Spectral HueCraig Laurance GidneyShares: literary fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, contemporary setting- HarrowJoy WilliamsShares: literary fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, identity as a theme
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