It's not a term I'm in the habit of using, but this story really is haunting. A driver is employed by a wealthy young widow to drive her around the cathedrals outside London. He is single, without family or friends, but tells her stories about a family he has made up just to have something to say to her, to fill the air. She becomes hooked on hearing about his family, he falls in love, but they are of different social tiers... I know how it sounds. But Hartley was an accomplished novelist and the ending stays with you. ( )

3789. The Hireling, by L. P. Hartley (read 25 Aug 2003) I wanted to read something by this author, who won a James Taite Black award in 1947 and who has a book on Anthony Burgess' famous list of 99 best novels published between 1939 and 1983. But this book, which came out in 1957, is the only book by him I could find in town. So I read it. It is not a bad book, and lives up to the description that Hartley is one of those rare novelists who knows what he wants to do and goes about it with a minimum of waste. It is an account of a hired car driver who sort of falls in love with the upper class woman who has him drive her around to get over the death of her rich husband. ( )

The story of a woman and her driver. ( )