Your Driver Is Waiting

November 14, 2022
Guns’ sharp and bonkers debut reimagines Taxi Driver for the Uber era. Damani Krishanthan, 30, drives long hours for RideShare in an unnamed American city, where her low commission rate can’t cover her bills and rent on the apartment she shares with her recently widowed mother (the household has also lost the income of Damani’s father, who died while working a fast-food job). Damani grinds out her gig, fighting exhaustion and keeping weapons close at hand for protection; passes a steady stream of protesters carrying “FUCK-this signs”; and hangs out at an abandoned warehouse-cum-night club, the Doo Wop Club, where she commiserates with fellow gig workers. Things seem to brighten after she books a fare with Jolene, a wealthy white activist with whom she develops a whirlwind romance. But when Jolene accompanies Damani to the Doo Wop Club, an argument ensues as Damani challenges Jolene’s abstract anticapitalistic ideas about how to handle predatory companies like RideShare. The third act, featuring Damani sporting a mohawk à la Travis Bickle, leads to a somewhat overheated ending, but there’s plenty of rich commentary on gig work, race, and white privilege. This has plenty of bite. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management.

January 1, 2023
A gender-swapped retelling of Taxi Driver. Damani works long hours driving for a ride-share app in an unnamed city. She lives with her mother, who has been left so deeply depressed by her husband's sudden death that she rarely leaves the couch. This debut novel is a retelling, of sorts, of Martin Scorsese's classic film Taxi Driver. On a superficial level, Damani does resemble Scorsese's Travis Bickle. She drives; she doesn't sleep; she lifts weights. Unlike Bickle, though, who is profoundly alienated from everything and everyone he encounters, Damani has a circle of friends and an attachment to a kind of utopian, socialist community known as the Doo Wop. Bickle's alienation has given way to Damani's sense of solidarity. She is a queer woman of color, and her city has erupted into a series of protests aimed at everything from climate change to wealth disparities and police brutality. Near the end, a protester runs past Damani, shouting, "Abolish the military! Stop killing Muslims! Black lives matter!" The real trouble starts when Damani falls for a wealthy White woman named Jolene, as oblivious in her privilege as Damani is trapped in debt. Jolene fancies herself an activist, but her activism is lukewarm, and her parents pay for her lifestyle. A political argument between Jolene and Damani's friends becomes excruciatingly awkward. Unfortunately, it isn't clear what Guns' intention is, either in this conversation or the book as a whole: While she seems to have meant the novel as a satire, the humor falls flat. The characters speak as though they are mouthpieces for someone else's point of view. Neither Damani nor anyone else ever emerges as a fully fledged character. As a whole, the novel feels confused: vaguely dystopian, blurrily political, and not especially original. Despite its ambitious premise, this debut novel never comes to life.

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Starred review from December 1, 2022
Six months after her father's death, ride-share driver Damani endures inconsistent hours, low pay, and disastrous interactions to support herself and her mother. Driving in an unnamed city for an unnamed company, Damani fights to maintain her mental and physical well-being as riders harass and assault her, returning home each night to a mountain of bills and threatening notices. She finds solace at Doo Wop, an underground gathering space frequented by artists and activists. One night, Damani accidentally taps a white woman with her car. The woman is fine, and the moment becomes a meet-cute. Enter Jolene, a committed social justice ally flush with jogging outfits and invitations to her summer house. Jolene does not pay her own rent, but she walks the walk when it comes to activism--most of the time--and Damani is enthralled. They begin a steamy affair, and the mystery of Jolene's true allegiances will drive Damani to the brink. The heightened experience of Damani's world is intoxicating: the suffocating smells of her car, the escalating protests in the street every night. But it's Damani's ferocious heart that makes Guns' debut impossible to put down; Damani's a lover and a fighter, start to finish.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.