The Maintenance of Headway

An unnamed London bus driver offers a hilariously real view of the London bus service, with all of its bureaucratic absurdity, in this short novel from Man Booker finalist Mills (The Restraint of Beasts). The author is also a bus driver, which adds colorful authenticity to this wacky novel filled with goofy characters and madcap situations. The driver is a patient fellow, calmly accepting criticism from self-important, officious inspectors, who hand out offense chits for violations of the bus drivers’ code, such as being too early, being too late, and, most importantly, failing to observe “the maintenance of headway” (i.e., not keeping the proper distance between buses on their scheduled runs). The narrator and his bus driver pals do everything they can to thwart the inspectors, all while complaining about their supervisors’ incompetence, annoying passengers, inconvenient road work, inattentive bicyclists, and arrogant taxi drivers. The drivers justify their behavior by their unshakable belief in the Theory of Running Early and the Law of Cumulative Lateness—hilarious explanations of the bus service’s futile attempts to choreograph bus movement. This sliver of life behind the wheel may seem silly, but it is consistently funny and perceptively portrays the plight of the little guy struggling to find sanity in an incomprehensible bureaucratic rat race. (May)