Customer Reviews

Drift: Stories

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.)

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.

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.

It's always rewarding for me to read something of quality from an emerging writer and Victoria Patterson is a great example. "Drift" is not really what it purports to be, it's actually a novel built from various viewpoints of characters in the story line. The timeline is somewhat jumbled, so you get pieces here and there of their intertwined histories, like flipping through a series of diaries.

Patterson's handling of several difficult subjects (drug addiction, sex addiction, prostitution, incest, rape, runaways on the street) is done with a careful and emotional hand. The writing is so close to the bone in some places, it's as if she's gone through several of these things herself and is writing from her own history. Her characters are all fully fleshed-out, you get a definite mental picture of each and they stay with you. I've been thinking about specific ones for two weeks after I've finished the book. That rarely happens to me.

As a long time reader, I've only been brought to tears only three times by the written word. Once was a story in 1980s Esquire by Bob Greene about a murderer's confession. Once was in Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses". And here, once again by Ms. Patterson in the touching chapter about a homeless skateboarder who receives a form of love from an old woman who lets him "sneak" into her house, eat a meal and sleep in one of the homes beds on a weekly basis. Some really well-handled, emotional stuff written from a place of deep connections. I'm a sucker for charity, especially when given to those who are damaged beyond help.

I highly recommend this book. I only wish it would have been longer so that I was still in the middle of reading it instead of currently trying to do it justice with this review.

I doubt that any of the characters in "Drift" would read a collection of "literary" short stories like this one. They just aren't the type. Most of them work in dead-end jobs, and seem to have had a great deal of trouble getting out of high school. Their parents abused them, so the protagonists do what comes naturally to them, which is to look for boyfriends, girlfriends, bosses and probably dentists who can continue to abuse them in one fashion or another. They suffer from all of the millennial and post- millennial afflictions of the day -- strung out on drugs, sex, booze and pointless relationships that make their parents loveless, sterile unions look like Ozzie and Harriet. Against all reason, they decide not to commit suicide, but choose instead to live out their lives the best they can, which on balance is probably a good thing.

This situation, however, presents author Victoria Patterson with a formidable challenge. How do you portray the inner lives, thoughts, and feelings of people whose self-awareness and articulateness is almost certainly at the polar end of the spectrum from your own? It's a question that Raymond Carver struggled with throughout his career, with mixed results. Carver's stripped-down, short sentence, almost monosyllabic prose style had a beauty and efficiency that was almost poetic, and it did seem to capture the courageous, if grim, fatalism of his mostly lower middle class protagonists. On the other hand, Carver's distinctive style looks increasingly like a literary dead-end, too mannered and too limited to really get inside the heads of people like himself and most of his readers, who approach things at a higher level of abstraction and understanding.

To her credit, Patterson has chosen not to adopt Carver's style, even though it would almost certainly have lent itself to the treatment of her largely down-on-their-luck characters. Instead, she has reduxed John Updike, who faced a similar but far less extreme problem with Rabbit, who shared the author's lustful energies and voracious appetites, but not his social class. Despite the lack of a Harvard education and a lifetime man of letters status at New Yorker Magazine, Updike's ex-star basketball player turned out to have an articulateness of his own. It was physical rather than cerebral, expressed through the instincts and actions of an athlete, misguided at times but never graceless, and unfailingly genuine and convincing.

Patterson's Rabbit is a girl named Rosie, who seems to see a lot of what the author would like us to see, but who lacks the fluency and self-awareness to say it herself. Still, at times she manages to get through in her own way. She allows a seemingly brain-damaged sidewalk-surfer named John Wayne to live surreptitiously in her grandparents guest apartment, and allows a desperate old man to break into the safe of the restaurant where she works. Even though they are accomplished at the expense of others, Rosie's random acts of kindness do offer a kind of moral lesson about charity, We might ask ourselves what other type of charity would be available to a person of Rosie's extremely limited resources, both emotional and financial. It's a good question, and one that should be asked, if not necessarily answered in precisely the way that Rosie does so.

Where Patterson occasionally goes wrong is to try to wrap things up too neatly for her readers and for her characters. Particularly towards the end of the stories, her lyric prose is routinely interrupted by paragraphs of low-grade psychobabble that seem to have fallen out of a self-help book. Usually, it's unnecessary. When a story has been done well, as most of these are, we already get it, because the characters have somehow expressed whatever needs be said. And, it's well worth listening to.

"Drift" is a collection of short stories with loosely interlinked characters residing/working in the swanky neighbourhood of Newport Beach. Told from the perspectives of a waitress, child of divorce, rich housewife and homeless teen, the stories are incredibly raw and at times, difficult to read due to the heartbreak, brutality and loneliness. Although it is fiction, the book is a reminder that the affluent also experience heartbreak, sorrow and alienation.

This collection is very easy to read and follow, but somehow lacks a good rhythm. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it and literally couldn't stop reading! I finished this collection in just one day and can't wait to read the author's future works.

I grew up in South Orange County and have been doing hair in the area for 10 years this book was a very real account of growing up "in the O.C." The characters were so interesting that I found myself getting sucked in and comparing their lives to the lives of my clients and friends I grew up with. This is a must read!

A collection of 13 short stories about 'Rosie'. The stories meld into each other more like chapters than short stories. However I'm sure any of these could be read alone as a short story.

The stories of Rosie take you to different times in her life and tells you of her parents, friends, and even employers.

She considers herself defiant and this does come through in each of the stories. After reading them you realize she is not defiant at all, but rather her own person trying to find herself.

Her friends include those who are well off, yet unhappy, homeless and happy, and some who are a lot like Rosie.

She tells of her first sexual experience as well as witnessing the rape of her friend and her closeness to her grandmother. Her relationship with her mother 'B' (actually Barbara but refuses to use that name) and her father is especially good at explaining what makes Rosie tick.

I really enjoyed this book. Ms Patterson is an excellent writer, easy to read and understand and very good at dissecting and relating to her characters.

The only reason I only gave it 4 stars is because it is not one of those books that I would cherish and read again.

I do recommend this book and may read other stories by Ms Patterson.

Thank you.
MEF

Drift has edge, and, in the beginning, this edge made it a breathtaking--almost dangerous--read. However, as the book concluded, its edge started to feel forced, thus negating its overall effect.

Patterson has successfully written a captivating collection of intertwined stories taking place in Newport Beach (of all places). Most of the stories star recurring female protagonists, and most deal with very real issues of common life, even if in an uncommon locale. Patterson pulls no punches, and this bluntness, initially, is refreshing and creates engaging--though not necessarily likable--characters.

A photo of Patterson smiling along a beach is embedded within the back cover of Drift. She is a normal, attractive woman with a nice smile. Her apparent affability unconsciously biased me, and so when male-on-male oral sex, drug use, and child abuse occurs, I was shocked. I've always believed it's important to separate the artist from the art, and I'd forgotten my own cardinal rule. Patterson has edge--real edge--in the early stages of her collection. It was placed perfectly within the pacing and tone of her stories, and while jarring, it didn't strike me as awkward. Unfortunately, about three-quarters of the way through Drift, that edge began to feel forced and even a bit sensationalistic. It drew so much of my attention that I couldn't lose myself in the tales any longer.

Even with that being said, it's important to note that Patterson IS a very good writer. While I question her plot choices near the end of the book, her stories remained tight and well-written throughout. She has an excellent sense of pace and delivery, and her sentences flow with ease. In other words, no matter what the subject, this is a person who KNOWS how to write well.

Anyone interested in the short story genre would do well to read Drift. Though mostly focused upon female protagonists, there's absolutely no reason why a male wouldn't also benefit from these stories--perhaps a male could even learn a thing or two from the female perspective. Furthermore, any aspiring writers should take advantage of this author who knows how to deliver edgy stories occurring within the mostly normal aspects of real life.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

`Drift: Stories' is written about the wealthy community, Newport Beach , California. However the stories describe the dark side.
Victoria Patterson uses descriptive word pictures both of the people and the surroundings. Her observations are astute and some stories have intertwining characters.
Perhaps most can identify with one of the first characters feelings...`it is so beautiful here maybe we do not belong`. Writing of the "small" cruelties of divorce and the tribulations of fuzzy hair and braces in high school, being asked `what planet do you come from" are just some of the observations that I found myself smiling as I read, thinking, I would like to meet these people which demonstrates good constructive writing.
Then on the other side of the monetary coin the feelings that the wealthy aren't bad, just maybe preferred. Some people look so good, it just never occurs to them to ask why, they are just the chosen.
You should be aware that these are broken up into stories not a novel constructed through -so if that will bother the continuity in your reading just be aware.