Driver

A bracing novel of work, labor, and collective action, this vibrantly written debut is narrated by a man who runs a high-speed train in France--a story born out of the author's experience as a real-life train driver. Driver begins as a contemporary apprentice tale: the narrator, a young man from the provinces, comes to Paris and enrolls in a course to become a train driver. As he discovers the train and its workings, from its internal machinery to its operative head, he is transported into a world both technical and poetic, with its own laws and codes, its own specialized language, its heroes and legends, its passions and boredoms, its dangers. Drawing from his experience of nearly two decades as a train driver, Mattia Filice constructs a propulsive narrative of meals scarfed down on the go, of solitude and sleepless nights, accidents and breakdowns, conversations with friends, and solidarity with fellow workers. His train, like the ship in Moby-Dick, becomes a microcosm for life