Lee Durkee

A Shade Too Dark

One thing can be said with absolute certainty about Lee Durkee’s The Last Taxi Driver: the state of Mississippi will not be hiring him to write tourist brochures. The humor here starts dark and progressively sinks into a pitch pit with any leftover humor boiled out of it. Taxi driver Lou begins as a keen and funny observer of the down and out of society and then devolves into a soul as wounded and looney as most of his fares, maybe even more so. And then there are the show more characters who pass in and out of his cab, some repeatedly, an assortment of the dirt poor, sick and infirm, alcoholic, and drug riddled; you can only stand so much before it all blends into a blighted blob you want to rush past.

Lou drives a cab, an old and crumbling Town Car, for the Mississippi All Saints taxi company, owned and operated by the nearly demonic Stella. Lou and Stella have a contentious relationship which revolves around a nearly complete lack of mutual trust. She has an intentional blindspot for her son Tony, a thirties near-do-well and incompetent criminal who menaces poor Lou. Not enough bad for one man, dispatcher Horace seems to have it in for Lou, because he’s always springing one last crazy fare him when he’s at the end of his shift, his back ablaze with pain, and his eyelids half closed. And what’s this poor Job going home to? A tiny apartment and a girlfriend, Miko, who can’t get out of bed due to acute ennui. Adding to his charmed life, Lou published a novel once that went nowhere, and taught in the local college until he mucked up matters so much they fired him. In short, Lou’s probably only a rung up from his sorry lot of fares.

And some of these fares prove interesting, some just sad, and a one or two poignant. However, after a while, about a third into the novel, they and their sorry plights begin to run together until you just don’t want to deal with them or the novel anymore. Probably that’s just how Lou feels.

If you must have your humor very dark and you want to know more about the seamier side of life and you have no fealty to Mississippi, you may enjoy The Last Taxi Driver. If descent into hellacious lunacy is your thing, try the film Taxi Driver (1976), which still sets the bar high on tales of crazy service workers, even today. show less

This book is, ostensibly, about the author trying to track down a true, authentic portrait of the bard. Apparently Shakespeare’s image is about as elusive as his credibility as the real author of the 37 plays and the sonnets. I taught high school and college English for 40 years, and during all of those years taught one of the plays and many of the poems. That said, I would never (and, in all fairness I don’t think the author of this book would either) suggest that this book qualifies as show more much of a source for academic research. In fact, the journey Durkee takes us on is a bit confusing. Keeping track of all of the candidate portraits takes a database spread sheet. What the book is is a hilarious adventure through the myriad of paintings and other images, written in Durkee’s amazingly clever style. In fact, I would say if you don’t care a whit about Shakespeare but you love good, and more importantly, unique writing, “Stalking Shakespeare” is worth your while. I retired seven years ago, and during that time my LibraryThing account says I’ve read 365 books, about 2/3 of those nonfiction. I would put this book in the Post-Retirement Hall of Fame for books I’ve read insofar as its entertainment value. And I wish I could think of a better adjective than “clever” to describe the author’s writing because that just doesn’t do justice to it. If you’re on the fence about this one, jump off immediately and either go to the Barnes and Noble clerk and buy it or approach the circulation desk and check it out. Oh, and I guess there is also a choice to click the “Buy Now” button on the Amazon site. show less

A Shade Too Dark

One thing can be said with absolute certainty about Lee Durkee’s The Last Taxi Driver: the state of Mississippi will not be hiring him to write tourist brochures. The humor here starts dark and progressively sinks into a pitch pit with any leftover humor boiled out of it. Taxi driver Lou begins as a keen and funny observer of the down and out of society and then devolves into a soul as wounded and looney as most of his fares, maybe even more so. And then there are the show more characters who pass in and out of his cab, some repeatedly, an assortment of the dirt poor, sick and infirm, alcoholic, and drug riddled; you can only stand so much before it all blends into a blighted blob you want to rush past.

Lou drives a cab, an old and crumbling Town Car, for the Mississippi All Saints taxi company, owned and operated by the nearly demonic Stella. Lou and Stella have a contentious relationship which revolves around a nearly complete lack of mutual trust. She has an intentional blindspot for her son Tony, a thirties near-do-well and incompetent criminal who menaces poor Lou. Not enough bad for one man, dispatcher Horace seems to have it in for Lou, because he’s always springing one last crazy fare him when he’s at the end of his shift, his back ablaze with pain, and his eyelids half closed. And what’s this poor Job going home to? A tiny apartment and a girlfriend, Miko, who can’t get out of bed due to acute ennui. Adding to his charmed life, Lou published a novel once that went nowhere, and taught in the local college until he mucked up matters so much they fired him. In short, Lou’s probably only a rung up from his sorry lot of fares.

And some of these fares prove interesting, some just sad, and a one or two poignant. However, after a while, about a third into the novel, they and their sorry plights begin to run together until you just don’t want to deal with them or the novel anymore. Probably that’s just how Lou feels.

If you must have your humor very dark and you want to know more about the seamier side of life and you have no fealty to Mississippi, you may enjoy The Last Taxi Driver. If descent into hellacious lunacy is your thing, try the film Taxi Driver (1976), which still sets the bar high on tales of crazy service workers, even today. show less

A travelogue for Mississippi this book is not. Durkee, who is a former taxi driver and I wonder how much of himself he has written into the protagonist, Lou. Lou at one time hoped to be a writer in New York City, but because of a series of life’s twists and turns has ended up in an unnamed Mississippi town driving a black Lincoln Town Car, for All Saints Taxi. His boss and owner of the company sticks him with a real variety of riders. From old black people in project housing who must go to show more dialysis to a drunk who pisses in his car, but leaves a $100 tip, Lou meets what we would call the dregs of society. And worst of all, Uber is about to move in, and his job will end. The black humor is depressing at times as he introduces readers to his fares, as in the time the police have him come pick up a very young white mother and her black baby during a meth bust. Of all the characters in the book, she’s stayed with me the longest. We only see a day of Lou’s life, but his day is far more challenging than I would want in my job. show less