If jokes about cancer, sex and the tyranny of children ruin your morning, steer clear of this book. But if you like George Carlin or Woody Allen, Simpson is their literary counterpart, roaring out of the short story form with a black cackle and an ironic wink.
In the Driver's Seat Helen Simpson (Knopf, $22)
The title piece is a mean little story about a woman and her boyfriend driving at near triple-digit speeds in a car not meant to travel that fast. “The way a man drives gives a surprisingly accurate idea of what he’s like in other areas,” Simpson writes. “Does he crash his way through the gears? Does he speed, or stall? Does he get nasty at the lights?” Many of Simpson’s stories have this sort of intensely personal tone. They leap-frog over the traditional fluffery of literary narration to speak to us directly. Neither is she sentimental; she understands that as much as we try, it’s virtually impossible to escape the prison we make of our own selves. The finality of death, as embodied in the book’s title, is a constant theme.
But not all stories have such sharp edges. In “Constitutional,” the final story, a pregnant, middle-aged woman strolls through Hampstead Heath, free-associating about life and the fact that she will die and the world will careen on without her: “Walking around the Heath on days like this, when there is color and sun,” she says, “I can feel it rise in me like mercury in a thermometer, enormous deep delight in seeing these old trees with their last two dozen leaves worn like earrings.
”It’s a beautiful moment; after making us smirk, Simpson shows us what’s going to help us get through not being in the driver’s seat: acceptance.