Thirteen - Sebastian Beaumont

"Thirteen" is the first book I have read by Sebastian Beaumont and it's always so nice to follow this comment by saying that I will certainly ensure that it isn't the last I will read from this author. I found the book to be wholly entertaining, engaging and captivating and I can definitely recommend it whole heartedly to other readers.

Stephen Bardot is a Brighton taxi driver working the long night shift driving people around ...
...a taxi driver in the first place is something of a bizarre situation as he was basically challenged to take the job for a year by an old school friend after Stephen's own business went bust and he lost his job, house and car. Stephen's twilight world is now full of party goers and night clubbers along with a fair smattering of more tragic people taking taxis to and from hospitals and other health institutions. One such regular customer he names Valerie, ... more

"Thirteen" is the first book I have read by Sebastian Beaumont and it's always so nice to follow this comment by saying that I will certainly ensure that it isn't the last I will read from this author. I found the book to be wholly entertaining, engaging and captivating and I can definitely recommend it whole heartedly to other readers.

Stephen Bardot is a Brighton taxi driver working the long night shift driving people around the streets of this seaside town. Quite how he became a taxi driver in the first place is something of a bizarre situation as he was basically challenged to take the job for a year by an old school friend after Stephen's own business went bust and he lost his job, house and car. Stephen's twilight world is now full of party goers and night clubbers along with a fair smattering of more tragic people taking taxis to and from hospitals and other health institutions. One such regular customer he names Valerie, a beautiful but frail woman he drives to and from a clinic. When Valerie's regular booking ends Stephen presumes that her illness has got the better of her and she has died, but then he discovers the house where he used to pick her up from, number 13 Wish Road, doesn't actually exist.

Stephen then starts to meet a variety of strange and peculiar characters who challenge him to search out the secrets of "number 13" whilst on the other hand giving him no help in his quest, indeed at times their obstruction of his search ends in violence and pain for poor sleep deprived Stephen, who is also finding that he is seemingly driving his taxi in his sleep. As he slips ever deeper into this unreal world his real-life friends begin to despair for him and start to question his sanity and just how dangerous his new job actually is.

Sebastian Beaumont admits in his introduction that all (apart from one) of the taxi stories that he uses as a basis for the book are based on real life experiences he had when he himself was working as a taxi driver in Brighton. Quite how much of the dream world that Stephen is drawn into is based on his own experiences during a long night shift at 3 in the morning isn't quite so clear but you get the idea that Sebastian Beaumont and Stephen Bardot are probably one and the same person. All of the chapters begin with a brief snippet of conversation that "SB" has had with a taxi passenger and as I say, most of the chapters begin with a fuller account of a weird and sometimes wonderful interaction between the taxi driver and his passengers.

Likening the twilight world that Stephen finds himself inhabiting to a dream gives a good sense of what is actually like reading the book. You sit down and are totally entranced by the very vivid imagery and surreal happenings of Stephen's quest to find "number 13" and then you stop reading and moments later, just like waking from a dream, you wonder what it was you've just been reading.

I loved the shaping of the chapters, interspersed with the real life taxi stories and I got well and truly drawn into the state of mind that Stephen slips deeper and deeper into. I liked the way the author shaped the quest to find "number 13" into happenings in Stephen's past and how this coming to terms with his previous actions was the key to what was going on.

Where I was slightly disappointed was that the ending was so very open ended. With such a book that relies so heavily of nuances, emotions and feelings I guess a definite and complete ending was never going to be the case but somehow the very loose ending could have been for me at least, a little more neatly done.

If you like books with wall to wall action and an endless series of events then this is probably not the book for you as sometimes all that happens in the chapters is Stephen being behind the wheel, but if you like something out of the ordinary and with a good measure of imagination behind it then this could well be right up your street (no taxi driver joke intended). The continual listing of street names might also be a put off for some, but for residents of Brighton this may well add some extra poignancy.

My copy of the book is just over 250 pages long and the book is extremely easy to get into and you may well find that that "one extra chapter" you were going to read ends up being three of four. 

...less