Winner of the 2008 Autumn House Fiction Prize selected by Sharon Dilworth, the 14 kinetic stories of Drift and Swerve swirl around characters in motion, hungry for connection or disconnection, struggling with violence and sexual emptiness, bad decisions and unintended consequences. A family flees a dying grandmother, pursing and nearly killing a drunk driver. A man abandoned by his wife becomes involved in a violent sexual relationship as he struggles to become a parent to his daughter. An adolescent girl runs to Providence, steals drug money to escape an empty relationship and runs to Austin, still searching for love, though she knows she has as much chance as anyone -- none. These are stories of connection and fracture, struggle and survival, dignity and disgrace, stories of isolation and the sparks of intimacy that reanimate hope.
Drift and Swerve
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
Drift and Swerve is an extraordinary collection--fourteen feverish stories propelled by Samuel Ligon's vigorous, perfect prose. Darkly funny and surprisingly moving, these tales of collision and escape feature unforgettable characters, like Nikki, who careens through the book's hard America with a ferocious, incurable case of hope. --Jess Walter
About the Author
Samuel Ligon is the author of Safe in Heaven Dead, a novel (HarperCollins2003). His stories have appeared in The Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, Post Road, New Orleans Review, Keyhole, Sleepingfish, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, and elsewhere. He teaches at Eastern Washington University's Inland Northwest Center for Writers, and is the editor of Willow Springs. He lives in Spokane with his wife and two children.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Perfect Paperback
Drift and Swerve is an invitation to rummage around in a junk yard where we examine interesting pieces, recount stories of special interest, and divert to the next piece that catches our discerning eye. Ligon steers us from "Providence" to "Orlando," from "Vandals" to "Cleavage." The trip appears to be long, but in fact, is a journey that begs for more.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Perfect Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
After Safe in Heaven Dead, I'd hoped for another novel, but this book of stories, DRIFT AND SWERVE, might be even better.
Here, as in his novel, Sam Ligon's characters struggle against compromise and corruption, spitting in the face of futility. But because there are more characters, facing a variety of dilemmas, the scope is wider here. And because the stories are so compressed, each is a fully realized representation that feels bigger than it's few pages.
Characters include two kids in the back seat of the title story, squabbling but allied against the random power in the front seat. There's also a deceptively compatible couple, homeward bound on the last road trip of their forsaken marriage. And then there's Nikki.
Nikki was born in the creation of "Dirty Boots," a story Ligon wrote for Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth. Nikki anchors the collection by opening each of the four sections and by closing the book, turning eighteen on a Greyhound bus. Each time she returns, you're glad to see her--despite the grimness you find her in, her reality being a sort of Reagan/Bush years dream unfulfilled, a place where freedom is bought with a bag of weed or a chunk of the body, and innocence is that part of your soul you'll never sell or allow to be taken no matter what you have to suck to save it.
Book jacket blurbs often cite the author's compassion or the characters' redemption, but Nikki would be pissed if you suggested that she needed either. Still, you can tell Ligon loves her, and maybe that's why I did.
And though some of the characters here don't inspire as much sympathy as Nikki does, Ligon's a master. From his effortless dialogue and narration to the shape of the stories and the book, both his ear for language and his eye for structure are unmatched. If some of his characters are trapped in their fatal trajectories, I get the feeling that Ligon, even as he's transcribing their stories, is as horrified as I am.
Here, as in his novel, Sam Ligon's characters struggle against compromise and corruption, spitting in the face of futility. But because there are more characters, facing a variety of dilemmas, the scope is wider here. And because the stories are so compressed, each is a fully realized representation that feels bigger than it's few pages.
Characters include two kids in the back seat of the title story, squabbling but allied against the random power in the front seat. There's also a deceptively compatible couple, homeward bound on the last road trip of their forsaken marriage. And then there's Nikki.
Nikki was born in the creation of "Dirty Boots," a story Ligon wrote for Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth. Nikki anchors the collection by opening each of the four sections and by closing the book, turning eighteen on a Greyhound bus. Each time she returns, you're glad to see her--despite the grimness you find her in, her reality being a sort of Reagan/Bush years dream unfulfilled, a place where freedom is bought with a bag of weed or a chunk of the body, and innocence is that part of your soul you'll never sell or allow to be taken no matter what you have to suck to save it.
Book jacket blurbs often cite the author's compassion or the characters' redemption, but Nikki would be pissed if you suggested that she needed either. Still, you can tell Ligon loves her, and maybe that's why I did.
And though some of the characters here don't inspire as much sympathy as Nikki does, Ligon's a master. From his effortless dialogue and narration to the shape of the stories and the book, both his ear for language and his eye for structure are unmatched. If some of his characters are trapped in their fatal trajectories, I get the feeling that Ligon, even as he's transcribing their stories, is as horrified as I am.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By C. M. Haaf
Format:Perfect Paperback
Drift and Swerve is edgy and wonderful. Ligon creates compelling characters and these stories are touching, comic, tragic - I was sucked into this world immediately and couldn't wait to find out what happens to Nikki. One of the best collections I've read in a long time.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harsh and Beautiful
This is the first work of Ligon's I've read, but I am excited to read his other work. I loved how he breaks up Nikki's story forcing the reader to wait. Read more
Published 5 months ago by HolidayRambler
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Writing
Excellent writing. Ligon's stories are tightly crafted to keep the reader turning the pages. More than just a collection of short fiction, Drift And Swerve holds within it a... Read more
Published on September 12, 2009 by Drew Biscardi
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
