Drop City - Softcover

Boyle, T.C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747564299 ISBN 13: 9780747564294

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2003

Synopsis

Star has joined a hippie commune devoted to peace, free love and living the simple, natural life. For Star and her companions it is utopia, a community free of the restrictions of the outside world. But underneath the bliss, she discovers tensions that threaten to split the community apart.

About this title

Review

With Drop City, T. Coraghessan Boyle offers proof that he has become one of America's most prolific, gifted storytellers. Set in the 1970s, Boyle entertains readers with the denizens of "Drop City," a counterculture California commune that welcomes anyone wanting to live off the grid, use drugs, and practice free love. Boyle sublimely captures the sociology of its rebellious members, who doubt the sincerity or beliefs of newcomers, express some insecurity about nonconformity, and chastise outsiders while remaining oblivious to their own hypocrisy. Marco, Pan, Star, and other "cats" and "chicks" live hassle-free until dissention and cries of racism mount amid increasing run-ins with the local government (a young girl is raped, installation of a sewage system is mandated, a mother lets her toddlers drink LSD-laced juice). Seeking refuge, the citizens move north, to Alaska, to reinvent their utopia, but soon learn the natural environment is more unforgiving of a lackadaisical lifestyle.

Drop City is funny, evocative, and well-paced, shifting between the hippies and the Alaskan locals--primarily Sess and his new bride Pamela (a city dweller who arranged stays with several trappers over a few weeks to determine whom she would marry)--until the two cultures collide. Balanced between plot and character, Boyle excels at describing the physical world and his characters' interaction with it, whether portraying the harshness (or sheer beauty) of the Alaskan wilderness, the simple survival routines of its grizzled inhabitants, or the sounds wafting through Drop City: "the goats bleating to be milked or fed, the single sharp ringing note of a dog surprised by its own hunger, the regular slap of the screen door at the back of the house--and underneath it all, like the soundtrack to a movie, the dull hum of rock and roll leaking out the kitchen windows." Truly American in spirit, Drop City is a strong novel of freedom and those in pursuit of lives of liberty. --Michael Ferch

About the Author

T.C. Boyle's novels include WORLD'S END winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, THE TORTILLA CURTAIN, RIVEN ROCK,WATER MUSIC and FRIEND OF THE EARTH. His stories appear regularly in most major magazines, including The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Granta and The Paris Review. He lives in California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747564299
• ISBN 13: 9780747564294
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464