Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories (Hardcover)

by Katha Pollitt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This collection of reflections by the Nation essayist and poet Pollitt (Reasonable Creatures) ranges in subject from her philandering boyfriend to a general late-midlife sense of loss. The title essay is the zippiest and most successful, fashioning a canny metaphor about the importance of observation both in learning to drive for the first time at age 52 and in recognizing that her lover of seven years was cheating on her from the get-go. Pollitt plays the conflicted modern woman par excellence, both feminist and feminine; she writes of unabashedly joining a Marxist study group at the behest of her guru-like boyfriend, who padded the meetings with past and present lovers (In the Study Group), then wonders with wistful anticipation what kind of life it will be when she has outlived all the men who find her desirable (After the Men Are Dead). Familiarity seems to breed weariness, however, and her essays about motherhood (Beautiful Screamer) and women's tenacious collusion in men's superiority (Sisterhood) have the feel of oft-tread ground. (Sept. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Celebrated for her award-winning political columns, criticism, and poetry, Katha Pollitt now shows us another side of her talent. Learning to Drive is a surprising, revealing, and entertaining collection of stories drawn from the author’s own life.
With deep feeling and sharp insight, Pollitt writes about the death of her father; the sad but noble final days of a leftist study group of which she was a member; and the betrayal and heartbreak inflicted by a man who seriously deceived her. (Her infinitely patient, gentle driving instructor points out her weakness–“Observation, Katha, observation!”) She also offers a candid view of her preoccupation with her ex-lover’s haunting presence on the Internet, and her search there for a secret link that might provide a revelation about him that will Explain Everything.

Other topics include the differences between women and men–“More than half the male members of the Donner party died of cold and starvation, but three quarters of the females survived, saved by that extra layer of fat we spend our lives trying to get rid of”–and the practical implications of political theory: “What if socialism–all that warmhearted folderol about community and solidarity and sharing was just an elaborate con job, a way for men to avoid supporting their kids?”

Learning to Drive demonstrates that while Katha Pollitt is undeniably one of our era’s most profound observers of culture, society, and politics, she is just as impressively a wise, graceful, and honest observer of her own and others’ human nature.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400063329
• ISBN-13: 978-1400063321
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #415,833 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave, honest essays from a wise soul, September 22, 2007

By	Robin Henig (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Katha Pollitt has long been revered for her sharp feminist writings, but in "Learning to Drive" she shows her more vulnerable side. Her skills as a poet carry these lovely musings about her parents, her daughter, her own fragile aging self, and the various boyfriends and husbands who have puzzled and amazed her through the years. I especially love the way she ends the collection, with thoughts about the most universal of subjects - beauty, aging, death. Fighting off the embarrassing urge to have plastic surgery, she realizes that her face carries in its contours the details of her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. "I like to think about the echoes of them, and of me, in my daughter's face, and the unexplained folds and angles that remind us that we are all made up of recombined bits of ancient ancestors, even if we don't know who they are." Pollitt is a wise, witty, complicated woman, and I loved spending time with her through this book.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the Freaking Times Book Review and Read This Book!, September 23, 2007

By	Judith Long "reader of fine books" (Sag Harbor, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Gentle Reader, ignore the natterings of the insipid NY Times reviewer and run, do not walk, to read Katha Pollitt's latest. It is pure pleasure. Witty, erudite, wise, poignant, insightful, and sometimes hilarious. I started to browse in it and came up for air two hours later to find I'd missed my favorite NPR Saturday shows.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Each story is a fine, crafted piece of comic writing, with expert turns of phrase", September 23, 2007

By	Grundoon (NYC) - See all my reviews

John Freeman in the Newark Star-Ledger:

One cannot open a publication these days without stumbling upon a personal essay. Unfortunately, the awkward confessions outnumber the moving ones - and the finely written are rare indeed.

In this jungle of self-revelation, however, there is a bird which manages to embody all three qualities. And in the past couple of years, many have sprung from the aerie of Katha Pollitt's imagination.

"Learning to Drive," Pollitt's hilarious, elegant new book of personal essays, collects these pieces into one volume. If a book could contain awkward silences, this one could fill a cathedral with them.

Herein Pollitt admits to Web-stalking her ex-boyfriend, of continuously failing her driver's test, of attending a Marxist study group only to spend most of her time procrastinating for the weekly reading.

Pollitt, an award-winning poet and columnist for the Nation, knows she can't simply dump this information onto the page and expect a reader's natural sympathy to do the rest. Each story is a fine, crafted piece of comic writing, with expert turns of phrase.

"Information was what I wanted from her boyfriend's ex-lovers," she writes in a piece about befriending one of his ex-lovers: "the underside of the carpet I thought I had been standing on." A piece on feminism has this description of Iris Murdoch: "she looks a bit like an intelligent potato."

This kind of wit is hard to come by, harder still in a writer so thoughtful. One almost wishes Pollitt didn't have to go through such travails to deliver it to us - but, selfishly, most readers should take this book and run.