Summary

The first story in the collection, “Drive My Car,” starts with the main character, Kafuku, reflecting that he had never been comfortable being in a car driven by a woman. He said that they were either too tense or too reckless. He admitted that there were some good women drivers, and some bad male drivers, and that he normally did not draw “distinctions between men and women in his daily life” (4), but he still felt as if there was an unexplainable difference between male and female drivers.

One day, Kafuku mentioned that he was in need of a new personal driver to his mechanic, Oba, and Oba recommended a woman he knew. Kafuku did not want to hire a woman driver, but agreed to meet her because he trusted Oba. Oba told him that she was in her mid-twenties, quiet, and “homely...