Who would Travis Bickle– the protagonist of the 1976 film Taxi Driver – be today? That question sparked the new novel by Priya Guns, Your Driver Is Waiting. It follows Damani, a queer Tamil ride-share driver who is struggling to pay her bills while people on the street around her protest for cause after cause that she can't seem to keep track of. Then she meets Jolene, who is the epitome of the privilege Damani does not have. As Guns tells NPR's Scott Simon, it's a relationship that forces her protagonist to reckon with her own preconceptions of wealth and whiteness.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy