cover image Driving Hungry: A Memoir

Driving Hungry: A Memoir

Layne Mosler. Pantheon, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-1-1018-7031-0

In this uneven memoir, Mosler, an aspiring tango dancer and freelance food writer, writes about her move from San Francisco to Buenos Aires after giving up on her initial dream of restaurant ownership. Somewhat aimless in her approach, she at first studies tango with Joaquin, a smooth-talking lothario she falls in love with until one night she loses his attention to “a green-eyed girl in an emerald dress.” After a taxi driver advises her not to “get mixed up with those guys at the milonga,” she soon stumbles upon a new quest: “What if I hopped into a random cab every week and asked the taxista to take me to his favorite place to eat?” As she documents her journey in a blog, Taxi Gourmet, cabbies introduce her to delicious food at hole-in-the-wall restaurants she wouldn’t have come across otherwise. Others balk at her request. After attempting to repeat her Argentine adventure in New York City, she discovers that New York cabbies are not quite as amiable, and a reversal in approach leads her to become a cab driver herself before she later sets off to Berlin. The unusual and interesting concept is better as a blog; in book form, Mosler’s narrative tends to fall flat. [em](July) [/em]