After more than a decade of working in Hollywood, actress Jayne Amelia Larson found herself out of luck, out of work, and out of prospects. Without telling her friends or family, she took a job as a limousine driver, thinking that the work might be a good way to dig out of debt while meeting A-list celebrities and important movie moguls.
When she got hired to drive for the Saudi royal family vacationing in Beverly Hills, Larson thought she’d been handed the golden ticket. She’d heard stories of the Saudis giving $20,000 tips and Rolex watches to their drivers. But when the family arrived at LAX with millions of dollars in cash —money that they planned to spend over the next couple of weeks—Larson realized that she might be in for the ride of her life. With awestruck humor and deep compassion, she describes her eye-opening adventures as the only female in a detail of over forty assigned to drive a beautiful Saudi princess, her family, and their extensive entourage.
To be a good chauffeur means to be a “fly on the wall,” to never speak unless spoken to, to never ask questions, to allow people to forget that you are there. The nature of the employment—Larson was on call 24 hours a day and 7 days a week—and the fact that she was the only female driver gave her an up close and personal view of one of the most closely guarded monarchies in the world, a culture of great intrigue and contradiction, and of unimaginable wealth.
The Saudis traveled large: they brought furniture, Persian rugs, Limoges china, lustrous silver serving trays, and extraordinary coffees and teas from around the world. The family and their entourage stayed at several luxury hotels, occupying whole floors of each (the women housed separately from the Saudi men, whom Larson barely saw). Each day the royal women spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery and mega-shopping sprees on Rodeo Drive. Even the tea setup had its very own hotel room, while the servants were crammed together on rollaway beds in just a few small rooms down the hall.
Larson witnessed plenty of drama: hundreds of hours of cosmetic surgery recovery, the purchasing of Hermès Birkin bags of every color, roiling battles among the upper-echelon entourage members all jockeying for a better position in the palace hierarchy, and the total disregard that most of the royal entourage had for their exhausted staff. But Driving the Saudis also reveals how Larson grew to understand the complicated nuances of a society whose strict customs remain intact even across continents. She saw the intimate bond that connected the royals with their servants and nannies; she befriended the young North African servant girls, who supported whole families back home by working night and day for the royals but were not permitted to hold their own passports lest they try to flee.
While experiencing a life-changing “behind the veil” glimpse into Saudi culture, Larson ultimately discovers that we’re all very much the same everywhere—the forces that corrupt us, make us desperate, and make us human are surprisingly universal.
From Booklist When the author, a Hollywood hyphenate (actor, voiceover artist, producer), came into an unexpected financial crisis, she needed to find a quick fix to keep the cash flowing. Because you don’t need a special driver’s license to drive a limousine, and because some of her actor friends told her it was a pretty good gig, she decided to become a chauffeur—just temporarily, you understand. But she didn’t expect to wind up driving around some of the world’s wealthiest people, members of the Saudi royal family. The book has a Lives of the Rich and Famous feel about it, but it’s not all about the money and the people who spent it (sometimes in utterly staggering quantities). In addition to the money, there’s some sentiment here, too, as the author comes to know these people, who seem to come from another world, and learns they aren’t so different, after all. Larson turned her experiences into a stage show, from which this memoir is derived. --David Pitt
Review "Jayne Amelia Larson spent seven weeks with the .001% and returned with an astonishingly rich story to tell. Honest, compassionate, and deeply entertaining, Driving the Saudis is the story of a woman trying to support her dreams, make a few bucks, and keep a gaggle of pampered princesses happy without losing her mind (or her perspective) in the process." –Suzanne Morrison, author of *Yoga Bitch: One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment *
“Driving the Saudis is an entertaining, fast-paced read. As someone who has traveled with the Saudi royal family, I can confirm that Jayne Larson provides an amazingly accurate account. So if you want to take a ride with royalty without leaving the comfort of home, read this book.” --Jean Sasson, New York Times bestselling author *Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia *
"Unlike most snappy memoirs about working as a temporary chauffeur for some of the richest people in the world , Driving the Saudis not only contains hilarious detail and horrifying excesses, but also serious social insight and moments of pure heartbreak. In her compulsively readable story, Larson has created memorable portraits of two cultures: theirs and ours." — Jim Krusoe, *Parsifal *
"A stolen glimpse into the world's most important and intriguing family. A wonderful book, wonderfully written." -- Robert Baer, author of New York Times bestselling Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude and *The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story *
"The engaging memoir of a struggling Hollywood actress/producer's experiences working as the chauffeur for the women of the Saudi royal family...Sharp-eyed and humane." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Larson reveals herself to be an articulate, observant writer. She balances colorful tales of excess and musings on women's roles, and accounts of bad behavior with considerations of the reasons behind it... [a] thoroughly enjoyable read." -- Publisher's Weekly
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