Synopses & Reviews
He was Charles Harmon, a black man “living white” and living wellbeautiful wife, German car, big housein an upper-upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.
He is Brain Nigger Charlie, a train tramp eking out a ragged existence on the railroads, leaning on drugs to keep him from thinking about everything he had, everything his creeping dementia has forced him to run from.
Charlies been asked a desperate favor: find the seventeen-year-old niece of the man who taught him how to survive the railsa girl lost somewhere on the High Line, the “corridors of racist hate” along the tracks of the Pacific Northwest. Charlie has little hope of finding her alive, but the request is an obligation he cant refuse. The search is a twisted trail that leads from Iowa to Washington State, mixing lies and deceit, hate and hopelessness, and brutal, stubbornly unsolved murders. All of which Charlie is prepared to meet in kind. What he isnt prepared
for is a path that will eventually lead him back to what he thought no longer existedhis own humanitythough the toll may turn out to be his life.
At once stunningly visceral and psychologically complex, furiously paced and deeply empathic, The Drift is John Ridleys most ambitious, most galvanizing novel yet.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
He was Charles Harmon, a black man living white and living well--beautiful wife, German car, big house--in an upper-upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.
He is Brain Nigger Charlie, a train tramp eking out a ragged existence on the railroads, leaning on drugs to keep him from thinking about everything he had, everything his creeping dementia has forced him to run from.
Charlie's been asked a desperate favor: find the seventeen-year-old niece of the man who taught him how to survive the rails--a girl lost somewhere on the High Line, the corridors of racist hate along the tracks of the Pacific Northwest. Charlie has little hope of finding her alive, but the request is an obligation he can't refuse. The search is a twisted trail that leads from Iowa to Washington State, mixing lies and deceit, hate and hopelessness, and brutal, stubbornly unsolved murders. All of which Charlie is prepared to meet in kind. What he isn't prepared
for is a path that will eventually lead him back to what he thought no longer existed--his own humanity--though the toll may turn out to be his life.
At once stunningly visceral and psychologically complex, furiously paced and deeply empathic, The Drift is John Ridley's most ambitious, most galvanizing novel yet.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
John Ridley, who lives in Los Angeles, is the author of four highly regarded novels, and a former producer on NBCs
Third Watch. He wrote and produced the film
Undercover Brother, wrote the story for
Three Kings, and wrote and directed
Cold Around the Heart. His novel
Stray Dogs was made into the movie
U Turn, directed by Oliver Stone. He is also a regular commentator for National Public Radio.
From the Hardcover edition.