Driven

Driven, first published in 1954, is a fast-paced noir novel centered on George Carpenter, an assistant manager of a bank. Desperate to get out of the rut his life is in, and beset by financial problems, Carpenter develops a scheme to rob the bank of a massive amount of money. Although he successfully manages the heist, he has no plan for what to do with either the money or his life following the robbery.

Why did he do it? George himself wasn’t sure. He knew only that, all at once, in every aspect of his life, pressures were building up: his immediate superior at the bank hated him; his wife, he was sure, was being unfaithful to him. Debts piled up, and George began hitting the bottle—hard. Suddenly, even this retreat was not enough, and George began to act mechanically, to take one step after another toward revenge and release.

During the dizzy, dreamlike weeks that followed, George embarked on a headlong flight into unreality. Under a series of assumed names he ran from drink to drink, from woman to woman, from city to city, and he learned what unlimited money can buy—and what it cannot. Saved finally from total self-destruction by his capture, and by a girl who shows him the futility of running any further, George pays his debt to society and comes to terms with himself; the moving story of his great rebellion comes to an end on a note of hope.