Drift by Caryl Lewis

 

Around the World in 80,000 Pages - Book 23

Drift by Caryl Lewis 

You can read about my Around the World in 80,000 Pages challenge here.

Miles travelled: 1,173 
Pages read: 8,459

From mid-Wales we pop over to the seaside, for what is actually our first coastal book of the tour (unless you count Jamaica Inn, which I don't).

Photo by Jeremy Segrott, used under 
Creative Commons licence 

The Ceredigion coast is remote and windswept. Once it was home to myriad small-scale (what I heard the other day refired to as artisanal) fishermen. But like the rest of the British fishing industry, low stocks have caused a large decline.

Drift tells the story of two outsiders: one a woman born in the village and never having set foot out of the cove, but seen as different by the locals, and her mother is rumoured to have come from the sea. The second is a Syrian soldier, captured during the war there and brought back as prisoner to Wales, where he is being unofficially held.

Caryl Lewis is a well-regarded Welsh novelist, and has won numerous awards. Drift is her first English language novel.

The novel explores ideas of belonging and displacement, about our ties to a landscape and a people. The style is somewhat shifting, and  blends many genres, including magical realism and political thriller. One moment the prose is literary; the next it has segued into something more akin to genre fiction. At times it feels on the verge of becoming sentimental, but pulls back just in time.

With 117/140 Drift gets ★★★★★. The flag remains that of Ceredigion, and the suggested listening is Stay With Me by Pandeni, a band that fuse Welsh and Middle Eastern music (and are vastly underrated looking at their Spotify plays).

Don't forget to check out the accompanying Welsh section of the culinary tour.