The Last Taxi Driver

Review
"Disarmingly honest and darkly comic. . . . Beguiling, energetic, razor-sharp prose."
― The New York Times Book Review
"Charming as hell."
― WIRED
"Raunchy and sweet and, at times, psychedelic."
― Garden & Gun
"Remarkable . . . part Denis Johnson-ish carnival of the wrecked, part Nietzschean Twilight of the Gods (or Twilight of the Taxicabs)."
― Kirkus, Starred Review
"A wild, funny, poetic fever-dream that will change the way you think about America. Durkee is a true original―a wise and wildly talented writer who knows something profound about that special strain of American darkness that comes out of blended paucity, materialism, and addiction―but also, in the joy and honesty and wit of the prose, he offers a way out. I loved this book and felt jangled and inspired and changed by it."
― George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo
"Terrific."
― Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
"The best book I've read in years."
― Chris Offutt, author of Country Dark
"A frenetic, voyeuristic delight."
― Mary Miller, author of Biloxi
"A stone cold masterpiece. Haven’t felt this way since reading Jesus’ Son and Bringing Out the Dead for the first time. Raw, revelatory, honest, full of kindness and anger and sadness and compassion."
― William Boyle, author of City of Margins
"For devotees of the offbeat and grit lit writers like Larry Brown and Mary Miller. Follow the air freshener rocking back and forth, taking you under its spell, as Durkee takes you for a ride."
― The A.V. Club
"One of the best novels in recent memory. . . . A wild and hilarious ride."
― The Washington Examiner
"Much of what makes Lee Durkee’s novel so delightful and surprising is his ability to dig beneath the surface of this funny, well-told odyssey, which channels a Shakespearean tragedy. This twenty-year follow up to his debut novel, Rides of the Midway, was worth the wait."
― The Chicago Review of Books
"A gonzo ride full of dark humor, philosophical insights, and shrewd observations about the plight of luckless people in the United States."
― Shelf Awareness
"The Last Taxi Driver is a road novel . . . rooted firmly in our America. The novel almost makes other fiction in that Southern tradition seem frivolous by comparison."
― Razorcake
"The working-class realism of Charles Bukowski with the countercultural flamboyance of Hunter S. Thompson. . . . Yet somehow, the author creates such a vivid likeness of life that readers can’t help but feel uplifted. There’s beauty in the beastliness. Don’t miss this one."
― Luckbox Magazine
"The Last Taxi Driver is a Canterbury Tales for our time . . . Decentralized, atomized, and alternately tranquilized and jacked up on cheap beer and meth, this is the world of Beckett, Godard, Robbe-Grillet."
― Full Stop
"In Lou, Durkee has created a fascinatingly complex character . . . Durkee tackles race and poverty, violence of many varieties, loss and longing, and the power of the imagination. Lou’s excruciating day will make readers cringe, and the recounting of his traumas is more than unsettling. This is a dark, feverish, and weird tale that remains compelling throughout."
― Bookreporter
"The funniest writer you’ve never heard of, but that may change. His 2001 debut, Rides of the Midway, is a 1970s coming-of-age masterpiece . . . Now, nearly twenty years later, at last we have Durkee’s second book, his own reboot, and wow is it worth the wait . . . a future Tom Waits vehicle if there ever was one."
― John Freeman, Lit Hub
A Kirkus Best Book of 2020
“A wild, funny, poetic fever dream that will change the way you think about America.” ―George Saunders
Hailed by George Saunders as “a true original―a wise and wildly talented writer,” Lee Durkee takes readers on a high-stakes cab ride through an unforgettable shift. Meet Lou―a lapsed novelist, struggling Buddhist, and UFO fan―who drives for a ramshackle taxi company that operates on the outskirts of a north Mississippi colleg