Drift: Stories [Paperback]

Victoria Patterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2009

Welcome to Newport Beach, California--a community often found glittering in the spotlight, but one that isn't always as glamorous as we imagine. Through the lives of waiters and waitresses, divorced and single parents, and alienated teens, Victoria Patterson's Drift offers a rare and rewarding view into the real life of this nearly mythical place, all the while plumbing the depths of female friendship and what it means to be an outsider. Fresh, energetic, deceptively powerful and delightfully frank, hers is a voice you won't be able to stop reading.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Patterson illustrates how deceiving initial impressions can be in her dark debut, a collection of 13 interconnected stories. At first glance, the characters seem to be blessed, living in tony Newport Beach, Calif., but Patterson quickly scrapes off the glitter, examining the complicated lives of Rosie, a confused teenage girl; John Wayne, a brain-damaged, homeless stoner; Anne, a lesbian psychologist in love with Rosie's mother; Melody, a trophy wife cheating on her husband, Henry Wilson, who has a secret of his own; and Joe/Christina, a transvestite. The majority of the stories feature Rosie, a nerdy teenager whose attempts to make sense of her life lead her down increasingly self-destructive paths, though she remains touchingly aware of others' suffering. In Winter Formal: A Night of Magic, Rosie and a seemingly perfect blonde princess have a nightmare evening; in The First and Second Time, Rosie violently loses her virginity. Later, in Joe/Christina, Rosie, now an alcoholic community college student, finds an unlikely savior in the local transvestite. Patterson's unflinching account of the seedy side of a real-life Xanadu is frightening, immersive and wonderfully realized. (June)
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Review

Victoria Patterson''s Newport Beach is a privileged world of wealth and heedless consumption that trails a wake of human damage. By giving us nuanced portraits of the sidelined, she somehow evokes the complex, glittering whole. Patterson is our generation''s heir to John O''Hara and Edith Wharton. And nobody else writes about female sexuality with such sensitivity and fearlessness. Several times, I had to put this book down just to catch my breath. --Michelle Huneven, author of Jamesland and Round Rock (Michelle Huneven )

Victoria Patterson's beautiful stories break our hearts as they inform us. Through her characters we see the complications and trauma of not fitting in with one's surroundings, in a version of California we are rarely allowed to see. Haunting, affirming, and often comic, her stories make the reader grateful for this writer's documentation of our human alienation--and our unexpected bonds. Patterson is a gifted storyteller, a fresh, essential new voice. -- Dana Johnson, author of Break Any Woman Down (Dana Johnson )

"Victoria Patterson has enormous talent and I suspect we''ll be hearing a lot more from her." (James Lee Burke )

"If I could write just a single story as beautiful and heartbreaking and intelligent as the thirteen linked together in Drift, I''m pretty sure that I could die a happy man. Victoria Patterson makes me envious as hell, and I applaud her for it." (Donald Ray Pollock )

"Set against the affluence of Newport Beach, Patterson's debut collection often focuses on the enclaves-- outcasts, waitstaff, divorcées, alcoholics, and drug addicts--as her characters confront personal battles, the limits of friendship, and the bleary anticipation of a different life. Patterson's 13 engaging tales offer keen perspectives on life lived on the fringe." (Booklist )

"Patterson''s unflinching account of the seedy side of a real-life Xanadu is frightening, immersive, and wonderfully realized." (Publisher's Weekly (starred review) )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (June 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547054947
• ISBN-13: 978-0547054940
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Victoria Patterson is the author of the novel This Vacant Paradise. Drift, her collection of interlinked short stories, was a finalist for the California Book Award and the 2009 Story Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle selected Drift as one of the best books of 2009. Her work has appeared in various publications and journals, including the Los Angeles Times, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. She lives with her family in Southern California and teaches through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Riverside.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent Writing Paints Stark Realities, July 18, 2009

By 

T. Adlam "professional consumer" (South Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drift: Stories (Paperback)

(What's this?)

I initially decided on Drift: Stories from Newport Beach because I wanted to read a few short stories, but I had no idea what I'd be getting myself into with this particular book.

It took me more than a few pages to get into, but the writing was so smooth that I could hardly stand to shelf it. I'm glad I kept at it because, like an undertow, it grabbed me when I least expected it and wouldn't release me until it was finished with me. In other words, it was a wild ride.

When one thinks of the OC, images of over-privileged hot chicks prancing around in bikinis tends to flood one's mind. But in these interlinked short stories, we're shown a completely different picture--like a behind the scenes portrait of (the seedier side of) the OC.

The cast of characters we're shown varies from alcoholics to drug users, to transvestites. Though some of the characters are *less than likable*, they're all somehow sympathetic. The main character, Rosie, who we see throughout the stories is unforgettable. Though she is riding an emotional roller coaster (to put it mildly) through life, struggling to become more, I found myself silently thinking, "wow, I've been there." (Feeling-wise, not necessarily experience-wise.)

The prose is tight and nuanced. It packs a punch, but you don't realize you've been hit until you're well onto the next page. To put it bluntly, It's phenomenal.

I will say that some of the stories will *NOT* appeal to every palate (there's some *very* sexually explicit material), but it's truly a lesson in great writing. There's a good chance you'll be left feeling *something* after reading Drift--whether good or bad will depend on your sensibilities--and that's what great writing ought to do.

(In fact, I'm *still* trying to figure out what it is I feel. I'm just in awe.)

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving story collection, August 23, 2009

By 

Wanda B. Red (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Drift: Stories (Paperback)

(What's this?)

These thirteen linked and evocative stories are set in Newport Beach, California, a Southern California landscape that is at once breathtakingly gorgeous -- the palm trees, the water, the yachts, the sand, the twinkling lights -- and emotionally bereft. Like Victoria Patterson, an exciting new fictional voice, I grew up here too, though many years ago. I went to the same high school as Rosie, perhaps the most central of several repeating characters, and felt both the excitement and the danger of coming of age in a place so beautiful yet so brutal, where youth and beauty alone are the coin of the realm for a young woman.

But I didn't expect to like these stories as much as I did, because it's too easy to mock this Eden and to expose its blindnesses and hypocrisies. Think "The OC." From publishers' descriptions of the book, that was what I was fearing. I'm used to the thoughtless denigration (or alternatively the uncritical exploitation) of Southern California and Orange County for its shallowness. I was unprepared for this complex fictional sketch of a seductive Eden where children struggle with the pain of divorce, parents and grandparents seek fulfillment while mourning the damage, and people chafe against constricting gender and sexual categories. This collection is truly something fresh, free, and different -- and painfully accurate.

Both entertaining and haunting, Patterson's collection is a tour de force. She won me over, and I look forward to her future writing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book, stories not so much linked, June 7, 2010

By 

J. Shoemaker (Berkeley, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drift: Stories (Paperback)

as geographically created so they seem to slip by one another like physical realities that lie side by side. I love the artful way the stories ping and jingle next to one another, the door chime sounds, you look up, there's John Wayne zooming by on his skateboard as Rosie skulks in, looking for a job.

The setting is gorgeously drawn, the many ways the surface of the water, so variously described, is so clearly seen, simply stunning, amazing, various as the look of the Pacific itself, and it's how the physical beauty of the place makes the devastated lives being lived here all the more sad, the frail connections, the bonds forged because of materialism, the aching pulsing loneliness.

This writer is a COMPLETE surprise, smart, serious, astonishingly gifted. Victoria Patterson is an American original, she puts me in mind of Henry James.