Hack

May 21, 2007
Plaut decided to become a New York City cabbie after getting laid off from a job as an advertising copywriter, then began posting about her interactions with patrons on a blog that forms the backbone of this memoir. The anecdotal structure has its weaknesses, repeating the cycle of passengers getting in the cab, engaging in conversation with Plaut, then leaving either a generous tip or a lousy one. There are also a number of scenes set at the garage, where she slowly develops a friendship with a 62-year-old transsexual driver while struggling to avoid another senior cabbie with bladder control problems. Plaut's growing dissatisfaction with the job provides the memoir with an emotional undercurrent. She has trouble shaking off the feeling that she's wasting her potential, and the drain of interacting with abusive passengers and a hostile police force eventually sets her to dreaming of dying in a car crash. In the end, however, she's grown more comfortable with her fate, ready to continue circling the streets looking for fares. Her storytelling technique may be uneven in this debut, but it shows promise.

June 15, 2007
In the new genre of blog-turned-published memoir, Plaut (http: //newyorkhack.blogspot.com/) chronicles her two intense years as one of the few female taxi drivers in New York City (99 percent are men). Although the physical and psychological toll is often brutal, driving a taxi was not just a job for Plaut but an existential, life-changing journey. She navigates the city streets searching as much for meaning and direction in her young life as for passengers. Throughout this personal odyssey, Plaut introduces us to a distinct cast of characters, including some from her backseat and fellow drivers encountered during the start and end of her shifts. The author captures the grit and humor of the city itself while humanizing a profession that manages to be both largely disregarded and reviled. Black-and-white photos by Plaut accompany each chapter, giving the reader a further glimpse into her world. A personal, Gen-X variation on Graham Russell Gao Hodges's "Taxi!: A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver", this enlightening and entertaining read is recommended for all public libraries.Jennifer Zarr, NYPL

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2007
Getting laid off can be a door opened, even a golden opportunity, as Plaut found when her advertising job ended, freeing her from trying to plan the rest of her days and to concentrate on what would be next, driving a cab in the Big Apple. What with licensing and fingerprinting fees, a medical exam, taxi school, and a test, becoming a hack wasnt easy. Moreover, being a hack meant being, as a woman, part of only 1-percent of her profession, not to mention belonging to a cohort liberally salted with bizarre characters. While not the only woman in her For-Hire-Vehicle Driver class, she was the only U.S.-born citizen. Many other students had fallen from elevated standings in their native lands to a lowly one in a land of opportunity that offered them few options. The three-day course emphasized the basicshit the streets early and dont get lost, stuck in traffic, ticketed, or in an accidentand the real learning came strictly on the job, as Plauts sad, funny, enjoyable account reports.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)