The Drift [Hardcover]

John Ridley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2002

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ridley (Stray Dogs) leads readers into the lurid, violent world of modern-day hobos and rail riders in this taut, riveting murder mystery. Charles Hanson left his middle-class L.A. life to become Brain Nigger Charlie, a free-spirited hobo who knows every trick in the book when it comes to surviving in the brutal world of rail riding. But even Charlie is challenged when his friend's niece Corina drops out of high school to ride the rails, only to find herself caught in a world of drug smuggling, gangs and violent thugs. Charlie's quest to find her starts with an encounter with Kessler, a neo-Nazi gang lord who has enslaved Corina as a drug mule. She manages to escape, and as Charlie races Kessler to find her, he picks up more information on her whereabouts from a sympathetic cop named Haxton Boole, who intervenes on Charlie's behalf when he is picked up and tortured by an FBI agent after a battle with Kessler's men. Charlie soon learns that the girl has hooked up with a Hispanic serial killer. After a brief trip to L.A. to revisit his old life (in the course of which he discovers that his wife has taken off), he heads to the Pacific Northwest for a deadly showdown. Ridley's terse, electric prose captures the subculture of modern-day rail riders, and the suspense level remains high throughout.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Charles Harmon was living the American dream great job, wonderful wife, nice house in the suburbs until his psychosis ruined everything. Now he has been transformed into Brain Nigger Charlie, a tramp riding the rails and digging through trash to find his next meal. When a fellow tramp asks Charlie to help him locate his teenaged niece, who has herself begun riding the rails, Charlie decides to honor his friend's plea. His efforts quickly draw attention not only from the law but also from less savory characters, including a white supremacist organization using the trains to run drugs. At the same time, there's a serial murderer traveling the rails, endangering Charlie even further. Ridley's writing resonates with truth and humor, and to his credit he doesn't romanticize the life of the tramp, depicting instead its ugly reality. Charlie's illness and quick descent into his current state are also handled with blunt honesty. Another excellent effort from the talented author of Stray Dogs and Love Is a Racket, this belongs in public libraries. Craig Shufelt, Lane P.L., Fairfield, OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375411828
• ISBN-13: 978-0375411823
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,341,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tour de Force of A Novel! A Sublime Page-Turner!, December 17, 2002

By 

LottaHoney "Lotta's Bookshelves" (Detroit, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Drift (Hardcover)

Book Title: The Drift
Reviewed by: LottaHoney
Amazon Rating: 5
APOOO Rating: 5

A Tour de Force of A Novel! A Sublime Page-Turner!

There is a rich American tradition of riding the rails. Even I, as a child, had adventurous dreams of running away on a railway and experiencing moonlit campfires and starry-night talks with hobos. John Ridley's The Drift illustrates the flip of the coin and the underbelly of drugs and terror on the turf of today's freight train riding hobos.

Charles Harmon, an upper-middle class Black tax lawyer, resides in Sunny California. Charles is a possessor of the American dream replete with a BMW in the driveway, a palatial suburban home, a gardener, Cayman Island vacations, and a beautiful wife with a new-born baby harboring a crystal blue, 3rd eye in his cheek - disturbing images that his slowly deteriorating, demented mind envisions. He abandons all of the accouterments of the American dream for the beckoning call of The Drift...the magnetic pull of The Drift...the sensation of The Drift, the gentle lull and roll of the trains on the tracks.

The protagonist, Charles Harmon, descends into an underworld of train-hopping hobos with tags such as Frypan Jack and Slow Motion Shorty. Charles discovers, "Freedom. Freedom is what the rails are for". Charles dies and experiences a rebirth as Brain Nigger Charlie and is indoctrinated into the world of steel corridors learning to `catch-out' and ride the rails.

Old and tired Chocolate Walt becomes the mentor to Brain Nigger Charlie and his newly acquired friends - the fierce and loyal George Plimpton and his potent and clinging lady friends, Lady K and Lady E.

The novel's plot heightens as Chocolate Walt engages Brain Nigger Charlie to ride the High Line in search of his wayward, runaway niece Corina Leslie.

The High Line is inhabited and controlled by the Pacific Northwest FTRA - Freight Train Riders of America or the original "F*$^ the Reagan Administration" - a vicious gang of psychopathic, racist, drug-trafficking, train-hopping hobos that have commandeered the freight train of America leaving a trail of corpses in its wake.

Brain Nigger Charlie attempts to redeem himself by valiantly searching for his friend's niece, Corina Leslie. As his search begins, amid many hits and misses, this novel takes you on a roller coaster ride with multiple bends, unexpected twists, and curves. As you succulently savor each page, the suspense is earth shaking, glass breaking, and unsettling... a wonderful and incredible tour de force of images with exact and precise descriptive images.

You are sure to begin a train ride on the Freight Trains of American into Pure Terror - in the capable hands of John Ridley.

Reviewed by LottaHoney
APOOO BookClub

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noir at its bleakest and best, December 18, 2002

By 

LingoSlinger "LingoSlinger" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Drift (Hardcover)

John Ridley has range. He wrote the story for the movie Three Kings [the George Clooney role was originally written as a black man], wrote the movie Undercover Brother, and writes for the NBC show Third Watch.

When it comes to his novels, Ridley describes himself as a follower of Dashiell Hammett and Damon Runyan. He is a credit to his masters. This action-packed book evokes the edgy bleak spirit of all the great black-and-white film noir movies, but without a single cliche and with a fresh take. Its dark humor, absolutely modern characters, and visceral violence reminded me of Pulp Fiction.

Beneath its ironically comic, beat-inspired narrative tone, The Drift manages to trace a fallen man's shot at personal redemption. This is a powerful, streamlined tale that hits you like one of the locomotives it describes. You'll read it in as few sittings as you possibly can.

This was the first Ridley novel I've tried, and definitely will NOT be the last. I've never found a book so wildly entertaining while dealing with a host of serious societal issues. Ridley is a major talent, and The Drift is a brutal, cold gem.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Complete Original!!, September 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Drift (Hardcover)

John Ridley has always been an original voice in crime fiction, but this time he outdoes himself. From the introduction of the real George Plimpton on the first page to its stunning conclusion, THE DRIFT is unlike anything Ridley or, for that matter, any other crime writer I've ever read, has produced. The book is suspenseful, touching, bizarre and, at times, quite funny. If there were a sixth star in this rating system, that's what I'd give THE DRIFT.