Driving Men Mad

by Elise Levine

The seventeen stories in this highly acclaimed collection are unflinching in their honesty, moving in their wisdom, by turns tough and surprisingly tender in their clear-eyed depiction of lives lived on the margins. With heartbreaking urgency, a woman recalls her all-consuming affair with the reckless lover who ultimately abandoned her by the side of a highway. A lonely cave diver risks everything for the dangerous thrill of the dive. Days away from forced retirement, a cosmetic-counter clerk with a rare skin disease ponders her future. A neglected boy’s fascination with reptiles takes a sinister turn. A woman finds herself telling one lie after another to both her troubled girlfriend and to the man she’s been sleeping with. These stories hum with remarkable tension as they vividly capture both the maddening confusion and the unexpected beauty of ordinary people rushing headlong into life.

Genres: Short Stories

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Em Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like finding books by writers I've never heard of. I didn't know what to expect from Elise Levine, but Driving Men Mad is an incredible book of short stories. She writes in a way that makes me embarrassed about my writing. Stories like "Boris" and "Aerodrome" completely put me in the character's minds. "Boris" is the boogeyman in a girl's imagination. "When Boris walks up the stairs he keeps his eyes shut, not because he's asleep- because he's dead." We see what's behind Boris, all of the dreadful things that might be around the corner when we're kids.

The best story is "Angel," about a lesbian from a small town. In a few pages, I totally got to know this character and it made the ending very emotional and relatable. Despite how it ends I wish I could find out what happens to the one character later on (the book is from the 1990s).

Most of her stories are really short, but awesome. They're like a storm passing through.