The Driver's Seat

Murial Spark's The Driver's Seat is the dark and unsettling story of a troubled young woman (Lise) with disturbing plans for her own life. The narrative is spare and undeveloped, and with few grand themes, but Spark is a master stylist who writes in tight prose and wicked humor. And her character Lise —  who is both the victim and in the driver's seat — is one of the more memorable female protagonists in modern fiction:

Her lips are slightly parted: she, whose lips are usually pressed together with the daily disapprovals of the accountants’ office where she has worked continually, except for the months of illness, since she was 18, that is to say, for 16 years and some months. Her lips, when she does not speak or eat, are normally pressed together like the ruled line of a balance sheet, marked straight with her old-fashioned lipstick, a final and judging mouth, a precision instrument.

Recommended.