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Taxi from Hell: Confessions of a Russian Hack
A Russian emigre filmmaker relates his experiences as a New York City taxi driver
280 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1991
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 26, 2011
Hilarious and oh so incredibly human. One of the best books ever about an immigrant's experience of America.
October 15, 2011
A great book about New York written by Russian cabby (taxi driver). The book explores NYC from its back side. Must-read for all New-York-addicted.
Title in Russian: "Желтые короли:записки нью-йоркского таксиста"
Title in Russian: "Желтые короли:записки нью-йоркского таксиста"
September 27, 2013
This is a book I enjoyed to the ROTFL level. I was driving a hack at the time, and the confirmation of my everyday experiences by this articulate, foreign-born, big-city cab driver were received with feeling.
However--SPOILER ALERT--when, at the end of the book, the author reveals how he finally beat the game and got out from under the unceasing debt, constant threat of violence, and frequent hardship of his job (he becomes a taxi OWNER, thereby passing the debt, hardship, and justifiable fear on to some other poor lease-tethered slob), I lost much of my enthusiasm and even more of my empathy. OWNER? Just like the soulless jerks I was working for every bloody day, not making the rent? Intolerable.
But fun to read if you've ever run tourists from the hotel to the zoo and back again.
However--SPOILER ALERT--when, at the end of the book, the author reveals how he finally beat the game and got out from under the unceasing debt, constant threat of violence, and frequent hardship of his job (he becomes a taxi OWNER, thereby passing the debt, hardship, and justifiable fear on to some other poor lease-tethered slob), I lost much of my enthusiasm and even more of my empathy. OWNER? Just like the soulless jerks I was working for every bloody day, not making the rent? Intolerable.
But fun to read if you've ever run tourists from the hotel to the zoo and back again.
December 2, 2019
I've always been captivated by the look and lore of cabs, their status as a kind of infrastructure, and the cultural spaces they connect and represent in themselves.
Taxi from Hell is a rollicking throwback to a grittier, pre-Disneyfied Manhattan. And it's written by a Russian Jewish émigré from what was still the Soviet Union at the time. This is the New York City of smarmy verve, where glitz and gutter commingled. The memoir offers an entertaining mix of nostalgia for the city that we non-NYers absorbed from popular culture along with the human comedy that inevitably comes from the melting pot. It's a worthwhile read, though it's a bit clunky in parts, likely due to translation.
Taxi from Hell is a rollicking throwback to a grittier, pre-Disneyfied Manhattan. And it's written by a Russian Jewish émigré from what was still the Soviet Union at the time. This is the New York City of smarmy verve, where glitz and gutter commingled. The memoir offers an entertaining mix of nostalgia for the city that we non-NYers absorbed from popular culture along with the human comedy that inevitably comes from the melting pot. It's a worthwhile read, though it's a bit clunky in parts, likely due to translation.
January 19, 2016
If I happen across this taxi driver I would have jumped out of the moving taxi, no matter the speed.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews