Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers

by Marcello Di Cintio

Shortlisted for the Bressani Literary Prize • A  Globe and Mail  Book of the Year • A  CBC Books  Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2021
In conversations with drivers ranging from veterans of foreign wars to Indigenous women protecting one another, Di Cintio explores the borderland of the North American taxi. “The taxi,” writes Marcello Di Cintio, “is a border.” Occupying the space between public and private, a cab brings together people who might otherwise never have met—yet most of us sit in the back and stare at our phones. Nowhere else do people occupy such intimate quarters and share so little. In a series of interviews with drivers, their backgrounds ranging from the Iraqi National Guard, to the Westboro Baptist Church, to an arranged marriage that left one woman stranded in a foreign country with nothing but a suitcase,  Driven  seeks out those missed conversations, revealing the unknown stories that surround us. Travelling across borders of all kinds, from battlefields and occupied lands to midnight fares and Tim Hortons parking lots, Di Cintio chronicles the many journeys each driver made merely for the privilege to turn on their rooflight. Yet these lives aren’t defined by tragedy or frustration but by ingenuity and generosity, hope and indomitable hard work. From night school and sixteen-hour shifts to schemes for athletic careers and the secret Shakespeare of Dylan’s lyrics, Di Cintio’s subjects share the passions and triumphs that drive them. Like the people encountered in its pages,  Driven  is an unexpected delight, and that most wondrous of all a book that will change the way you see the world around you. A paean to the power of personality and perseverance, it’s a compassionate and joyful tribute to the men and women who take us where we want to go.

Genres: Nonfiction, Canada, Audiobook, Memoir, Book Club, Contemporary, Cultural

288 pages, Paperback

Published August 3, 2021

About the author

Marcello Di Cintio traveled to West Africa in 1997. He taught biology in a Ghanaian village for three months, then traveled through western and northern Africa for nine months more. Di Cintio’s time in Africa resulted in his first published stories and, eventually, his first book, Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa.

In 2003 and 2004, Di Cintio traveled to Iran to discover the connection between Persian poets and traditional wrestlers. Knopf Canada published the resulting book, Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran, in 2006.

In February 2008, Di Cintio flew into the Algerian desert to begin nearly five years of travel and research for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades chronicles Di Cintio's journeys along some of the world's most disputed and unfriendly edges. The book tries to answer the question: What does it mean to live in the shadow of a wall?

Di Cintio's 4th book, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, reveals life in contemporary Palestine as seen through the lens of the region's rich literary culture.

Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers will appear in May 2021. This book will reveal the fascinating backstories of the men and women who drive us around.

Reviews

[Toby Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 billion shining stars!
I've always considered Marcello Di Cintio to be one of Canada's greatest writers. The guy can weave a story out of anything and make it unputdownable. This book cemented him in the #1 spot for me.
The premise of this amazing book is simple - everyone has a story. Di Cintio set out to tell the stories of taxi drivers from across Canada and nailed it.
As a side bonus, this book reminded me to be extra-gentle to people you meet. You never know what someone else has gone through and what brought them to where they are at that moment in time.
I can't recommend this book enough if you are looking for an engaging read.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The taxi," writes Marcello Di Cintio, "is a border." Occupying the space between public and private, a cab brings together people who might otherwise never have met – yet most of us sit in the back and stare at our phones. Nowhere else do people occupy such intimate quarters and share so little. In a series of interviews with drivers, their backgrounds ranging from the Iraqi National Guard, to the Westboro Baptist Church, to an arranged marriage that left one woman stranded in a foreign country with nothing but a suitcase, DRIVEN seeks out those missed conversations, revealing the unknown stories that surround us.

Travelling across borders of all kinds, from battlefields and occupied lands to midnight fares and Tim Hortons parking lots, Di Cintio chronicles the many journeys each driver made merely for the privilege to turn on their roof light. Yet these lives aren't defined by tragedy or frustration but by ingenuity and generosity, hope and indomitable hard work. From night school and sixteen-hour shifts to schemes for athletic careers and the secret Shakespeare of Dylan's lyrics, Di Cintio's subjects share the passions and triumphs that drive them.

Like the people encountered in its pages, DRIVEN is an unexpected delight, and that most wondrous of all things: a book that will change the way you see the world around you. A paean to the power of personality and perseverance, it's a compassionate and joyful tribute to the men and women who take us where we want to go.

After reading the fourteen chapters and the "backstories" of each taxi driver, I have a new understanding and respect for these hardworking Canadians. I appreciate Di Cintio's research and method of writing that not only showed each individual driver but also pointed out the connections and similarities between the drivers.

The following quote by author Lindsay Wong sums this book up nicely.
"DRIVEN Is an engaging, impeccably investigated, character driven work of narrative nonfiction, told with Di Cintio's wonderful dark humour, keen empathy, and rich journalistic eye. The book is a searing testament to the power of untold stories, of people who exist in the margins, of hidden histories, as well as an examination of Canada's immigration laws. A truly fine blend of heartbreak, guffaws, and research."

"In these deeply researched and richly-often shockingly-detailed portraits of Canadian taxi drivers from all over the world, Di Cintio reveals, among other things, the heavy price exacted by getting here, and staying here. The funny, savage, and poignant stories and these pages give a fresh urgency to an old saying that all of us should remember The next time we get into a taxi:" Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
- John Vaillant, author of The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting compilation of the stories of taxi drivers in various locations across Canada. Each chapter provided a short account of the backstory that brought each taxi driver to his or her profession ferrying people to and fro and their most often short interactions with their passengers.

The author is a well established Canadian author and his interview skills and ability to concisely spin an interesting narrative in the twenty or so pages of each chapter gives us an entertaining look at a job and the people who deliver strangers to the far corners of our country.

Clearly this often under appreciated group possess hearts of gold and the patience of saints. The take away from this book is that we could all learn to be kinder to the taxi drivers of the world if we only take the time to consider such moments from another point of view.

Additionally, these drivers interviewed had a wide variety of backgrounds, skills, and heritage, not unlike the Canadian population itself. Somewhat of a microcosm of the macrocosm of our country.

[Fraser Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

What begins as something of an article on various taxi driver demographics and various socio-economic statistics became much more interesting. Shifting to individual stories of drivers all over the country to embody the points made about racism, sexism, and the role of taxi cabs at an individual and national identity level. From Uber wreaking havoc on cities to immigrant stories, to the story of a cab driver turned writer, I found most of these stories to be captivating. Especially the one focusing on female cab drivers.

This does a great job of shining a light on how society treats people as lesser than while showcasing the dynamic and incredible stories of people fulfilling a service literally everyone has used at some point in their lives. It’s an effectively humanizing tale, and one that can be extrapolated to people doing other kind of work, who also are looked down on. Effective piece of writing, for me.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some really interesting stories in here. One of the first Canadian centric books I’ve really enjoyed also. Very cool insights on the mutualism taxis have with so many niche industries and how the pandemic has affected them. Favourite chapters were IKWE’s, Mo’s and Tammy’s.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

He encouraged his audience to be upstanders rather than bystanders. p47

It's one thing to poke the bear every now and then. It is another to become their adversary. p234

Considering the overall excellence of his other books, I had no doubt in putting a request in for this one as soon as it became available at the library. Like the man says, everyone has had a friend or relative in the biz, and many people rely on driving taxi to supplement their meagre incomes and/or as a fallback between other work. My brother drove cab in college; my husband supported us before he learned English by driving taxi for a year; and my son drove a cab while deciding not to go to university. So I thought I knew about the practical and the shadow side and that this would be a tame and nostalgic reading experience compared to the gut-wrenching impact of his other books.

Not so. Marcello Di Cintio has given us not only intimate portraits of standout individuals, he frames their common themes in such a way as to illuminate a broader picture. Displacement is a major theme in many if not most of these stories; it seems ironic to me that a good percentage of taxi drivers are immigrants displaced from their homes, now making money by driving other people home.

And yes, a lot of the stories tore my heart: the cruelties inflicted on the innocent, the inexplicable creativity applied to modalities of hate. But MDC is no pessimist; rather he is the kind of man who can gain the confidence of others with his casual empathy and warm attitude. Hence we have these portraits, unvarnished, made possible by a level of trust that is conveyed to the reader, encouraging us to drop our own judgements and allowing us a direct experience of the aliveness of each individual who consented to be interviewed.

He is also the kind of man to do a follow-up, the impact of the epidemic and the sobering figures of world wide fatalities among the drivers, front line workers. If Uber was bad for business, how will it be with the predicted driverless cars? I was encouraged at least by the women of IKWE in Halifax and by the stamina and perseverance of all the drivers and those who were driven out.

This book would be 6/7 but for GR I am bumping 4.5 to a full five

All those people who suffered from the war must finish dying before it becomes history. p22

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look into the lives of the men and women who drive cabs in Canadian cities. Most are immigrants, most are men, most arrive here as a result of changed circumstances, inability to land work in their chosen field, or in some cases, because they freely like driving cabs. I particularly enjoyed the Taxi sheriff in Montreal and the women who drive cabs.

[Matthew White Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Was this ever good. I love the project Marcello Di Cintio embarks on here: turning your attention away from the stories from the backseats of drivers, focus instead on their backstories. By paying attention to the drivers themselves, Di Cintio manages to avoid the clichés of taxi noir to write a collection of narrative nonfiction essays which is both rich in compassion and engrossing for all of its humanizing details.

As such, this book can definitely make for some fast, engaging reading. I chose to take my time with it.

Although taxis are spaces where stories seem to just naturally generate, stories people have loved when represented in film (Taxi Driver) and countless nonfiction pieces (think Mean Streets), taxi drivers themselves are certainly a rather misunderstood class. Di Cintio says in his introduction that "the physical closeness between cabbie and passenger makes such silent disinterest feel unnatural." He's certainly right. When i step into a cab or an Uber. Uber, by the way, is the enemy in this book; di Cintio limits his subject to mostly traditional cabbies and the Ikwe cab drivers of Winnipeg. This latter group consiting entirely of female drivers operates like a charity cab service for women in need of safe rides in the face of the ongoing nightmare of indigenous disappearances.

I need to strike up conversation when I'm in a cab. I'll talk with the driver about anything because the silence can't be described as anything other than awkward. Also, in my experience, a driver is almost never without something to say. Also, that's a human being in the other seat and I want to know about them more because that is my social instinct as another human being. And yet di Cintio has discovered a goldmine of stories that convey so much more than what I get with the small talk I engage in, which is always so lacking the depth found in this book.

The book covers a really diverse cast of drivers; most of Canada's taxi drivers are born outside of Canada according to a Stats Canada study conducted in 2006 (the fact that 2006 is the most recent year we can find data on taxi racial demographics may speak volumes on how underconsidered individual taxi drivers are and also how important this book is for presenting these stories). Di Cintio tells the immigrant experience with respect to the sacrifices his subjects made to travel here. Brilliantly, this collection of stories is privileges stories of resilience rather than tragedy. The themes drawn from these stories may feel suspiciously neat, almost a little too curated and it makes one wonder what kind of stories were left out of this slim volume. Since di Cintio's book seems to fear to overstay its welcome at 276 pages after endnotes-a totally unjustified fear-it risks on almost being a little too calculated in its theme. However, it should be noted that each participant who is included in the final project is fascinating in their own right, and despite the clean harmonizing of its themes (almost a little too clean for my liking in historical nonfiction) the cast of this collection are drawn vividly. Each subjecy is clearly distinguishable from one another.

Consider Nathan Pelps, who escaped from the abuses of his father and the fundamentalist authoritarianism of the Westboro Baptist church. He now drives cab in Cranbrook British Columbia among LGBTQ activism and is often outspoken against the church's hatred. And there's Jass, one of Calagary's few female drivers--she likes the night shift--who moved Canada from the state of Punjab, India. She was to be married but found herself years later driving cab in company with another man after the arranged marriage broke down. Although this books does contain the story of a holocaust survivor turned cabby, an ex Iraqi Guard member, a Soviet with failed attempts at grooming his daughter into a figure sakting star, di Cintio is careful not to define his participants by where they are from or what traumas they faced. Same as how he sets out to look behind the label of their occupation, he also reports on all of the layers and nuances needed to make these individuals come to life on the page.

I am grateful for these stories and this book comes highly recommended.

[Nicole Bergen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sure if this was quite the book for me, but I loved Pay No Heed to the Rockets, so I thought I’d give it a try, and it turns out that drivers are as varied and interesting a group of people as any. As good a reminder as any not to underestimate people, or assume you know them.

[Avery Hollman-Ridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

cool story bro

[Juan Arrieche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this one

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had interesting stories about the lives of some taxi drivers, but I'm uncertain as to what the point of the entire book.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Di Cintio interviews taxi drivers and tells their life stories and how they became taxi drivers. He does this with empathy, respect and gets out of the way to let the subjects speak. The result is an interesting book about immigration, struggle, survival and perseverance.

[Anne Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

How long has it been since you’ve been in a taxi? Personally, it’s been years because I tend to take Ubers, but after reading this book, I may seek out taxis more often. Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers by Marcello Di Cintio is a look into the lives of taxi drivers across Canada, each chapter detailing a new driver, and a fascinating life story behind them. As I usually do, I’d like disclose the fact that I know fellow Calgarian Marcello Di Cintio, I typically see him at literary events (back when they were in person) and he’s got a wicked sense of humour, but rest assured that if I didn’t like this book, I simply wouldn’t review it. I’m actually quite surprised at how much I did enjoy this, I’ll admit I wasn’t all that excited to pick it up because I don’t read a lot of non-fiction to begin with, but as soon as I dove in and met our first cabbie, I was hooked.

Book Summary

Before the pandemic, Di Cintio spent time crossing Canada in search of interesting cab drivers. Many weren’t willing to talk (surprisingly, cab drivers in Winnipeg were particularly close-mouthed), while many wouldn’t stop talking once they started. In his introduction Di Cintio admits that he never had a particular affinity for cab drivers, in fact, he’s almost gotten into a fight with one. But once he began asking question and interviewing them outside of their car (typically in a Tim Hortons), he heard stories that would both shock and sadden him, as well as his readers. Moving past the well-known ‘doctor from another country driving cab in North America’ story, he meets taxi drivers who escaped various wars and even one arranged marriage. He also meets a group of women known as “Ikwe”, a female volunteer organization dedicated to driving Indigenous women around Winnipeg, the city known for its racism towards Aboriginals. Alongside Di Cintio we discover the magic behind these people and their stories, painting a picture of the often turbulent lives of these blue collar workers that are so often forgotten by society.

My Thoughts

In my mind, there is nothing better than a book of personal stories skillfully told. I have no doubt that there were many people that simply didn’t make the cut in this book because every single cabbie we meet is so engaging. The selection and editing process to arrive at this group is reason enough to read Driven because I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Di Cintio’s journalism skills are clearly evident in the rich descriptions and conversations he relays in these pages, but what makes his writing even better are the small asides he offers us when making personal observations about people, or poking fun at himself. He is simply honest when describing these people that he is interviewing. One cab driver in particular, nicknamed “The Bully of Baghdad” adores his expensive BMW and makes a living ferrying around rich people and doing them favours. It’s obvious that this man is a bit obnoxious, parking wherever he likes and generally coming off as a braggart, but Di Cintio cares so much about his subjects we get a peek behind the bravado to truly understand what ignites this particular man and his dreams. Another memorable chapter is about a cab driving couple who spend a lot of their time together:

I asked Jass if she and Amrit ever tired of each other during those grueling workdays. They worked side-by-side for years. She barely understood my question, which perhaps revealed more about my relationship with my now-ex-wife than about her and Amrit’s marriage. ‘My husband is very family,’ she said. ‘He is always around us. He is a very good person. A very nice gentleman.’ (p. 78 of ARC).

I laughed out loud when I read this! I love people who don’t take themselves too seriously, and it’s obvious that in doing the research for this book, Di Cintio was humbled by the hard work and ingenuity of these drivers. I was too. He points out that driving cab is a physically demanding job, it’s hard on the body, and drivers are often expected to work extremely long hours and eat unhealthy fast food while on shift. But he’s also very straightforward when he’s uncomfortable or in disagreement with some of the opinions that are expressed during his interviews. One cab driver, who escaped the Nazis himself, compares what Uber is doing to the taxi industry as another holocaust. “Yikes” is not a strong enough word for how inappropriate this comparison is, and obviously Di Cintio experienced the same discomfort when he heard this. Still, the charm of this book lies in the vast array of the opinions these drivers possess.

What’s wonderful about a book like this is that it would appeal to a wide swath of readers. It may seem like a niche topic (as it did for me) but once I gave it a chance, I was happily engaged from beginning to end so I’m excited to recommend it to others too.

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[MÉYO · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid book about a journalist who interviews taxi cab drivers from across Canada and relays their personal journeys into and out of the taxi business. Staying away from the clichéd “racism has relegated this brilliant foreign trained doctor to drive a taxi to make ends meet…” Di Cintio instead paints vivid origin stories of immigrants from around the globe who escaped war/political oppression and then details the convoluted pathways that led them to drive a taxi cab for a living. With taxi driver stories told by men and women along a wide time span, the reader gets immersed in an industry that was very lucrative in its nascent development and even spawned a successful sit-com and hit movie. It was amazing to see how this industry gave citizens and immigrants a pathway to be their own boss, hustle for as hard as they wanted and secure their piece of the Canadian dream with home and business ownership.

Di Cintio also details the threats and challenges to the taxi cab industry with many pages describing the impact of Uber, the fight against Uber, the COVID-19 pandemic and the competing non-profit transportation services set up by women in Native communities fed up with the disrespect and harassment of taxi cab drivers not belonging to their community. And to further break the stereotype that driving a taxi is an “immigrant job,” Di Cintio writes an eye opening profile on Nathan Phelps, a man who escaped what many people call “The Most Hated Family In America.” With his deceased father being the infamous Fred Phelps and with his family still operating the grotesque website www.godhatesfags.com, Nathan found himself driving a taxi cab after a long personal journey to find solace and to connect with people on a humane level.

You can tell Di Cintio put in a lot of work to bring a level of fairness and authenticity to the people he profiled from coast to coast. This book was so hard to put down because you’re just dying to see if the people profiled in the book succeeded in their goals or if they got burnt out and chewed up by the grind.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2018, the author spent a year travelling across Canada to seek out the stories of our taxi drivers. He wanted to hear their back stories, where they came from and how/why they became taxi drivers. He wasn't interested in meeting the "overeducated" ... those who had degrees from other countries who were forced to drive a taxi because their education wasn't recognized here. Most drivers didn't want to meet with him or were too busy.

The drivers he did talk who lived across Canada ... from St. John's, NF, to Yellowknife, YT. Most came from somewhere else, some from war-torn countries. He spoke with men and women, some with families and some were single.

There are fourteen chapters and everyone had a story to tell, including a man who was estranged from his very religious and famous father, an organization in Winnipeg that just drives women so they will be safe, the fight against Uber, a Russian who was stranded in St. John's and longs to go home and more, and I found them interesting. As a head's up, there are stories of violence and there is swearing.

At the end, there is a postscript to give updates on how the drivers are doing now. Unfortunately, COVID has hurt the industry ... some drivers are barely getting by and some have left.

Blog review: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2021/08...

[Elizabeth D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t know what to expect from this book, but I really loved it. It flows like a series of short essays introducing real taxi drivers from across Canada, each with their own unique backstory and world view.

Whether it’s Mo with his high ambitions, Jens who likes to talk about the connection between Shakespeare and Bob Dylan, the anti-Uber efforts of the Taxi Sheriff in Montreal or my personal favourite, a group of women volunteers who provide safe rides for female passengers out west, there is a deep respect for the oftentimes flawed people who do this job.

Author Marcello Di Cintio travels from the East coast to the West, North and South, and everywhere in between. He spoke with men, women, old, young, immigrants and Indigenous people, single people and families who work together driving taxi. So much information, thought and feeling packed into each chapter that I could have happily read standalone books about many of the people described here.

[Carol Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Driven. Di Cintio’s exceptional research through his interviews with taxicab drivers across Canada, allowed him to delve deeper into the individual person and their particular story. Primarily their stories were of immigration experiences, yet the history of the individual driver extends much further than the stereo typical image of a cabbie. Reading this book reminds us of the uniqueness of everyone and the depth of their personhood.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters interviewed in this book are an amazing process of life inside a taxi. Marcello goes beyond the well-known tropes of taxi drivers and dolls into their personal experiences. Sociopolitical and economic stories are there, but their craftily woven into the stories of the people who drive us around.

[Mary-Esther Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed meeting Jass, Amrit, Kareem, and the Ikwe drivers.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was chosen as my local librairy's everyone reads book, I had heard if it in passing and so gave it a try. It does a good job of reminding us that everyone has a story. And that all roles have value in our society.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the true stories from multiple taxi drivers across Canada and how they got to be in the taxi business. This wasn’t what the reader expected this book to be, but it ended up being better than the expectation. It’s very common in Western culture to hear the stereotypical story that cabbies who have immigrated to the country are well respected doctors/lawyers, etc. etc. in their country but those skills aren’t recognized so instead they drive a cab. This book really flipped that narrative on its head and journalist, Di Cintio, actually took the time to sit with real cab drivers across the country, Canada, and learn their stories. This ended up being a really thought provoking book in the sense that no one ever really thinks to understand and see where or why people come to a new country. Reading these cabbies stories was so fascinating because even though they all ended up doing the same thing, they all had different reasons for getting into the business. The reader enjoyed the stories, Di Cintio has a really easy way to his storytelling that captivates his audience leaving them wanting to read more. Although, there were moments through some of the stories where it felt like he added too much or irrelevant information that really dragged and kinda lost and took the reader out of the story. What was really well done was that this felt like it covered a wide demographic range in terms of representation. He talked to immigrants from not only India, but Russia, Czech, and Iraq to name a few; he talked to women drivers, and to a group of Indigenous women with their own ride share program. Each of them all with an intriguing and engrossing story to tell that was worth reading.

[kim v · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐️ rounded up. Marcello di Cinto interviews taxi drivers all over Canada: male, female, immigrants, indigenous. Some face racism, some sexism. They’ve all experienced violence in some form, as well rudeness, bigotry, drunks and drug users. But some provide safety for sex workers and abused women, and some provide emergency transport for people in need. They’ve had to compete against Uber and public transport, but then put almost out of business by the pandemic. There’s a story for everyone in this book.
Canada Reads Long list 2022

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the taxi drivers' stories really interesting.

[Craig Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers by Marcello Di Cintio is a compilation of fourteen stories from all across Canada. Di Cintio concentrated on the subjects outside of the confines of their cabs and thus spared us the seedy stories that one might have expected to find in the cars’ back seats. We learned what brought each man–and a few women–to find his or her career as a cab driver. Some fled unstable or war-torn countries while others needed to make a living while waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn. The chapters that worked best were the shorter ones, as I found the author’s lengthier cabbie profiles to be boring to the point where I no longer cared who he was writing about.

The overwhelming number of cab drivers are recent immigrants. They have to put up with all kinds of passengers, and being in a cab seems to give some of them licence to be openly racist. I never realized how much verbal abuse cab drivers face in order to earn a living. Most of them have learned to ignore it. Di Cintio then exposed a chilling fact:

“A 2012 Statistics Canada report revealed that taxi drivers are murdered on the job at a higher rate than workers of any other legal profession. Even police officers are killed less often.”

On the lighter side of cab driving, I chuckled as each driver told the author his immigrant story because:

“Almost every taxi driver I met who had come from somewhere else, especially from tropical climes, told a similar story of landing during the cold dead of winter. No one ever seems to arrive in Canada in the summer, as if there were an official government policy to cruelly haze new Canadians with weather.”

The best chapter was about the women of Ikwe, a group of Winnipeg women drivers who serve a female clientele. After feeling the abuse and discrimination from male drivers, Winnipeg women had had enough. Ikwe, an Ojibwe word meaning woman, is their non-profit taxi service. I also enjoyed the chapter on Rawi Hage, a driver turned award-winning author.

Di Cintio included a pandemic postscript, to document how COVID decimated the taxi industry. Drivers lost customers and had to work longer shifts to earn the same each day. Cabs were outfitted with barriers and some drivers no longer felt safe handling their passengers’ baggage.

[Susan Armstrong · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had been highly anticipating this book and was overall quite disappointed in it. The stories of drivers follow the same trajectory: hardship/war in countries of birth, immigration leading to incredible hard work + outside of the box strategies to gain economic stability. The most important chapter to me is the Women of Ikwe, highlighting grassroots concrete action to provide safe rides to indigenous women. The final story of Phil Bailey was bizarre to me. In this epilogue, Marcello states that Phil's story is not for his to tell. The entire book is jammed with drivers' experiences of raw, unhealed trauma that lead me to repeatedly question whether it was appropriate for Marcello to gather these stories and share them with readers. I wondered whether the drivers were further traumatized by this retelling and how it would be for their deepest wounds to be on view to Canada. I hope they gained something from the process. The book did lead me to renew my commitment to take taxis when needed versus ride sharing services. And following the pandemic, this commitment is desperately needed.

[Thomas Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

First I would rate this book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

The author decides to talk to various cab drivers across Canada or at least try to. Many are not willing to set down and talk but he does find a few that are willing to talk and it is an interesting cross section of a group of workers that are really in the background. The authors interest is not about the work even though there is a fair amount of the book does cover the industry and the different drivers but it is not like taxi cab confessional or even more extreme like the one on certain smut sites. The author get these drivers to talk about themselves and their families and with at least half of the drivers being immigrants how they got to Canada. Reading some of these stories is really tragic with what some of these had to go through in their home countries. I also found it interesting on a couple of stories how the cabbies are actually protectors. It is also amazing the determination for these people to secede. This was a great read. Thank you to Edelweiss and Consortium Book Sales for an ARC for a fair and honest review.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers intrigued me from the cover alone. Then I learned it was about Canadian Taxi drivers from across the country and I was in.

Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction there is something about identifying with the places that are featured within a book’s pages that I love so much. So, reading about the lives of these Canadians connect with me more.

As for this book, I really like nonfiction that has an overarching theme but features a different person or place within each chapter. Also, Marchello’s writing style is very easy flowing and personable. You feel like you’re in his shoes as he travels the country from Halifax to Yellowknife and everywhere in between. Seeking to share the stories of these men and women who often blend into our society without any of us really knowing them.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Audiobook] The intro really rubbed me the wrong way and I think that coloured the rest of the book for me. The author seemed disparaging of taxi drivers and it’s unclear how he made the leap to probing the most intimate details of their lives. I’m surprised he earned their trust. Further, the book’s positioning seems off. The title didn’t make sense to me until the very end. Except for two stories, the book is about immigrant taxi drivers. (Meanwhile, how he managed to find a Russian taxi driver in St. John’s, NL is beyond me.) Why not just make it about that? Having said that, I loved the Ikwe story - it just felt out of place.

[WB · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and the well researched stories of cabbies across Canada.

I had no idea when I started reading this book that the first driver profiled was Peter P. He was my grade 6 teacher. I am now 62 and I have never forgotten him. Mr P was very popular with his students. His boss was an old-school headmaster type who couldn’t accept Peter’s new way of teaching and inspiring young minds. Mr P left the school and drove a taxi where I’m sure he was educating people for the rest of his working life.
A good read about the immigrant experience, taxi wars, working in challenging communities and the human spirit.
Wayne