TAXI FROM HELL: Confessions of a Russian...

TAXI FROM HELL: Confessions of a Russian Hack by Vladimir Lobas (Soho: $12; 280 pp.). In this outrageous journal, Lobas documents the cross-cultural clash that occurred when an emigre Soviet film maker became a New York cab driver. His outsider’s view of American culture is often revealing--and explains why a cab ride through Manhattan can be a terrifying experience. (He barely knew how to drive or where anything was when he started.) A skillful observer, Lobas populates his narrative with a rogue’s gallery of passengers, drivers, small-time bigshots and other urban characters. He avoids the smart-aleck superficiality that dogs many comic memoirs by juxtaposing his struggle to comprehend life in America with the fate of a friend who remained in the U.S.S.R., a dissident poet who died at the hands of KGB doctors.