{"product_id":"in-the-driver-s-seat-book-helen-simpson-9780307277565","title":"In the Driver's Seat","description":"A dark, dazzling, surprisingly funny new collection of stories (\"Masterly\" --Adam Mars Jones, \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e; \"A virtuoso performance\" --Jane Shilling, \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e) about single women and wives in various phases of midlife--anxious mothers, besotted mothers, beset mothers--in a (futile) search for security and consolation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Helen Simpson's stories move and disturb us as they light up the human gift for making the best of it--\u003ci\u003ewhatever\u003c\/i\u003e it is.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49562703298833,"sku":"CIN0307277569A","price":3.88,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0307277569.jpg?v=1751164763","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/in-the-driver-s-seat-book-helen-simpson-9780307277565","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}