Drop City, by T. C. Boyle
January 8, 2008 by Andrew
After having him on my To Be Read pile for a long time, I finally found my way to T.C. Boyle, and was immensely rewarded by the read. Drop City is a great example of a culture clash – wanderers searching for purpose and identity coming up against a rooted community that doesn’t want the change they bring.
The wanderers in this case are hippies who have come from all over the United States to Drop City, a notorious commune in California. There, the allure of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll comes up against the quotidian reality of sewage, food supply, and differing interpretations of what ‘dropping out’ really means. When ‘the man’ crashes their party, they pack up goats, children, and amplifiers, and head to rural Alaska to recreate Drop City in a true wilderness.
Boynton, Alaska is the last stop on the road to that wilderness, home to a cast of fiercely independent people determined to wrest a living from the backcountry. Sess Harder is a young newly wed fur trapper carving a homestead twelve miles into the bush from Boynton. He and his beautiful wife are building their self-sufficient lives when the unprepared, enthusiastic, and idealistic hippies arrive in a convoy to occupy the nearby cabin of his mentor.
Boyle captures the needs and wants of these people through the eyes of Sess and Star, a former teacher who embarked on an unsettling cross-country trip before landing at the original Drop City. As opinionated but not close-minded observers and participants, Sess and Star carry the story and provide insights into the two cultures. While both of them value the core of their lifestyles, neither is unwilling to reject the other life to cling to their own way. Sess and his wife Pamela find kindred souls among the hippies, and Star finds the sense of home and freedom she has been searching for.
Such a story doesn’t come with conflict, though. Boyle delves into the internal clashes in the hippie community, while setting Sess up against a rogue bush pilot. The questions that come out of these conflicts gets to the nature of community – can a loner be a better member of society than someone who uses isolation to escape social norms? Is it possible to have a peaceful, productive society without some central organization or leadership? How do people dedicated to pacifist ideals enforce their rules?
The secondary characters are as closely drawn as the two main characters, and Boyle often focuses on them as he carries the story forward. Boyle has also captured the settings – both time and place – with a keen eye for detail and a sharp but not unsympathetic insight into the motives of very different people. This is not the kind of book you forget when you’ve finished it, and I look forward to experiencing Boyle’s skill in the future.
I loved this book. An excellent examination of how back-to-the-land values can lead in very different directions, depending on the person.
I would also like to recommend Merilyn Simond’s The Holding, in which a back-to-the-lander communes with a pioneer woman who lived on the same property years before. I am always on the lookout for back-to-the-land fiction; any more recommendations are appreciated.
I don’t know…I have always found T.C. Boyle’s characters a bit cold for my taste but you made this one sound so good that I am tempted to give him another try.
Well, with the Alaska setting you can imagine that they are somewhat cold…
I found most of these characters varied and contradictory, occasionally acting in naked self-interest, but also open to the beauty and possibilities of both the people and the landscapes around them. There are some who who innocently transgress, and others who prey on the people around them, and Boyle does a good job of distinguishing between their motives.
I hope your next attempt to read him gives you a good read.