The Driftless Area: A Novel [Hardcover]

Tom Drury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2006

The new novel from the award-winning author of The End of Vandalism is a wry and sophisticated heist drama. Set in the rugged region of the Midwest that gives the novel its title, The Driftless Area is the story of Pierre Hunter, a young bartender with unfailing optimism, a fondness for coin tricks, and an uncanny capacity for finding trouble. When he falls in love, with the mysterious and isolated Stella Rosmarin, Pierre becomes the central player in a revenge drama he must unravel and bring to its shocking conclusion. Along the way he will liberate 77 thousand dollars from a murderous thief, summon the resources that have eluded him all his life, and come to question the very meaning of chance and mortality. For nothing is as it seems in The Driftless Area. Identities shift, violent secrets lie in wait, the future can cause the past, and love becomes a mission that can take you beyond this world.

In its tender, cool irony, The Driftless Area recalls the best of neonoir, and its cast of bonafide small-town eccentrics adrift in the American Midwest make for a clever and deeply pleasurable read from one of our most beloved authors.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blasé 24-year-old Pierre Hunter is the unlikely hero of Drury's fourth novel, set in the isolated region of the Midwest that gives the book its title. Newly orphaned and bartending in a small town, Pierre is just coasting through life"until a near-fatal ice-skating accident introduces him to beautiful Stella Rosmarin, a mysterious girl who lives alone in an abandoned house. That too-lucky-to-be-chance rescue is the first of a string of strange incidents that fill Pierre's life as he begins an affair with Stella. When, on a cross-country hitchhiking trek, he unwittingly steals $77,000 from a dangerous character named Shane by landing a chance blow, the novel's tone shifts from absurd to surreal as Shane plots to get the money back. Meanwhile, Stella has been keeping a spooky secret that will be the undoing of everyone's plans. Though the Coen brothers-meet-David Lynch characters can seem stylized and two-dimensional, Drury (Hunts in Dreams) has a knack for entertainingly weird detail that shines throughout. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Pierre Hunter had a chance to escape his small Iowa hometown, but now he's back, working as a bartender. Reticent and watchful, he lives a spare, wistful life, blundering in and out of trouble. He's happiest while skating across the lake on his way to work, until one fateful day when he falls through the ice. He would have perished if a beautiful woman living all alone in an isolated house on a bluff hadn't appeared and rescued him. After he and Stella become lovers, he hitchhikes to California to visit relatives and incurs the wrath of a dangerous man under peculiar circumstances. In fact, everything is just a bit odd in this moody and mysterious tale. Over the course of four original novels, Drury has forged an entrancing form of midwestern paranormal noir. Deadpan wit, cosmic melancholy, characters both ethereal and down and dirty, predicaments a Beckett character would accept as inevitable, and a porous divide between the living and the dead add up to a delectably unnerving outlaw fairy tale. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (June 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087113943X
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139436
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,996,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, surreal, but short, July 31, 2006

By 

Stuyvesant Parker "Stuy" (Whittier, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Driftless Area: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm a big fan of Drury. I think The Black Brook is one of the finest novels I've read, so I was really excited about The Driftless Area.

The Driftless Area seems to be a much shorter novel than his others, as if Drury was holding himself back from describing nearly twice as many small experiences the main character undoubtedly went through. His other novels tend to meander through his character's lives rather leisurely while this one almost feels like you're being shoved through the lives of a few characters that you would like to know better. This is actually probably a blessing, possibly Drury saving you from becoming attached to several key characters. I almost feel the need to thank him for this.

Driftless introduces a lot of surrealistic concepts that were mostly absent from his other works, if I recall correctly, but Drury handles them gracefully, if not beautifully. I have to commend him from that.

There's not much else I can say about the plot than is already given away by the summaries present on Amazon, as it stands I almost thing they give away too much. I managed to avoid them for the most part (even on the inside jacket cover) and I would suggest the same for most others. As it stands the main plot of the novel doesn't begin until half way through (if not past the half way point) but, like Drury's other works, the plot of his novels isn't the driving aspect.

Drury achieves something in his novels that sometimes I feel only I can truly appreciate, and maybe that is his gift. He writes general life experiences in such an ironic, dry, but somewhat comical way that they feel like I am actually living them. In fact, most of the time I can see my own life as being a Drury novel that I am acting out. The Driftless Area is no different than this.

I have trouble recommending anything by Drury to anyone I know. This is mostly due to the fact that their reading habits are so different from my own, and the aforementioned fact that I almost feel like Drury is writing just for me.

Regardless, I think The Driftless Area would be a great introduction to Drury. If you can enjoy the small details of life, the eccentricities of the conversations had in this book, and you find yourself laughing at things and you're not even sure why you are laughing at them, then I suggest you dive into his other work. Regardless, it's a fairly short novel that is highly entertaining, and you would be missing out if you pass over it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars perfection, September 5, 2006

By 

Steven Becker (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Driftless Area: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm also new to Drury. I plucked this book off the Border's shelf of new fiction a few weeks ago, admittedly intrigued by the sultry, alluring woman on the jacket cover. Then I cracked it open, read the first couple paragraphs, and was like, "Done." I bought it, and it was just the sweetest, most satisfying read--funny, suspenseful, seamlessly absorbing right up to the final page, with countless characters that Drury, in no time flat, summons to life deliciously. I was thirsting for a novel like this, and it more than quenched me. I can't recommend this book highly enough; it delivers.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Depth, August 15, 2006

By 

Terry Caplenor (Bell Canyon, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Driftless Area: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was my first Drury book; I have since gone out and gotten as many of his books as I can find. This is a slim tome, to be sure, but I think it is perfect in length. I did want it to go on and on since I loved the characters so, but that would have made it a different book.

In this book Drury shows his amazing mastery of the English language. He is able, more than any other author I can think of, to use the simplest of language to convey rich thought and complex ideas. This man knows our language inside and out. I can't imagine a translation being any good at all.

Not only is the language deceptively simple in this book, but Drury captures vivid characters through the simplest of actions and words.

Less is better? Absolutely!