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Drift: A Novel by Manuel Luis Martinez
At sixteen, Robert Lomos has lost his family. His father, a Latin jazz musician, has left San Antonio for life on the road as a cool-hand playboy. His mother, shattered by a complete emotional and psycho-logical breakdown, has moved to Los Angeles and taken Robert's little brother with her. Only his iron-willed grandmother, worn down by years of hard work, is left. But Robert's got a Duck trouble, save his money, and head to California to put the family back together. Trouble is, no one believes a delinquent Mexican American kid has a chance-least of all, Robert himself. Wrenching and wise, Drift gives an unflinching vision of the menace of adolescence, the hard edge of physical labor, and the debts we owe to family.
- GenresFictionYoung AdultLatino
Paperback
First published April 1, 2003
6 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Manuel Luis Martinez
6 books3 followersManuel Luis Martinez (June 26, 1966) is an American novelist and literary critic. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, and is the author of four novels: Crossing, (Bilingual Press, 1998), Drift, (Picador USA, 2003), Day of the Dead, (Floricanto Press, 2010) and Los Duros (Floricanto Press, 2014). His fiction deals primarily with the lives of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants, and explores the themes of migration, contemporary urban life, and the experience of dislocation. He is also the author of a book of literary criticism, Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomas Rivera, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).
Martinez is a professor of English at The Ohio State University.
Martinez is a professor of English at The Ohio State University.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 26, 2023
this book will have me reading again
Read
December 14, 2025I picked this one up since it is on Springboard’s recommended list for Pre-AP ninth graders. I read it very quickly and can see the connections to Catcher in the Rye and other VERY male perspectives. I didn’t love it although I really wanted to.
From a teacher’s perspective, this is a wild choice for a whole class novel for ninth graders.
From a teacher’s perspective, this is a wild choice for a whole class novel for ninth graders.
November 23, 2014
I picked this off my shelf because I was going to be in Texas for a few days and wanted something in that place, but it was a hard one to finish. I wanted to care about the characters but they read as very unrealistic somehow - perhaps it was the great depth of reflection and poetic thoughts they were having, it just didn't seem true to life. If someone is a poor, third-generation Mexican American who doesn't speak Spanish, who takes drugs, I want to really get to know that character.
I do think the book is true to San Antonio and the grandchild-of-immigrants experience, if not with the dialogue, the setting and challenges. I like how not everything works out perfectly because that's much more realistic, although possibly too many things do.
I do think the book is true to San Antonio and the grandchild-of-immigrants experience, if not with the dialogue, the setting and challenges. I like how not everything works out perfectly because that's much more realistic, although possibly too many things do.
April 11, 2014
Drift by Manuel Luis Martinez is a great book. It features the main character Robert Lomos, his grandmother, and His friend Nacho. Robert lives alone with his grandmother, who ensures that he will grow up right.Robert doesn't really like this idea, but since grandma has sent him to Sunnydale Christian Academy, he has to find a way to be rebellious secretively. Robert comes from a very distraught family. His father was a jazz musician who abandoned his family years ago, leaving Robert with his grandmother while Robert’s mother ran off in a desperate pursuit of her husband. Robert's new school Sunnydale even more strict than Boys' Latin, but Robert can spot a screw up like himself in a second, he quickly finds one in Nacho, who uses drugs, and rock ’n’ roll just as much as Robert. Together, the two raise about as much hell as possible without being expelled, and Robert has the added thrill of scoring with Diana, a convent-school girl whom Nacho is madly in love with. But eventually these small pleasures are just not enough, and Robert runs away to LA to search for his father and mother. Los Angeles is a different scene entirely, and Robert takes to it well, but his reunion is cut short when his grandmother dies.
In conclusion i can say that i strongly recommend this book. I feel like any person who can relate to Robert would enjoy this book. The author does a great job using elements of suspense and drama to create a good story. Martinez will draw you in and keep you wanting more until you finish the book.
In conclusion i can say that i strongly recommend this book. I feel like any person who can relate to Robert would enjoy this book. The author does a great job using elements of suspense and drama to create a good story. Martinez will draw you in and keep you wanting more until you finish the book.
October 4, 2015
This book is young adult and like most books in this category they tend to have the same issue if the plot is often taken at school, the main character as issues and by the end they resolve their issues. But one this book doesn't really end like that it had for of a basic ending which makes the book interesting.
The book itself is great but if your looking for a good content to improve your reading strength, this is not your book you want to read them. It does talk about how the life struggles are for those people that have a life style like the main character. You can relate to the book a lot because it has real world problems that at least everyone has gone through.
I recommend this book if you're reading for pleasure and you don't want a challenging book. I thought it would be a little bit challenging but it was like at most a 10th grade reading level due to the content and language the author uses.
The book itself is great but if your looking for a good content to improve your reading strength, this is not your book you want to read them. It does talk about how the life struggles are for those people that have a life style like the main character. You can relate to the book a lot because it has real world problems that at least everyone has gone through.
I recommend this book if you're reading for pleasure and you don't want a challenging book. I thought it would be a little bit challenging but it was like at most a 10th grade reading level due to the content and language the author uses.
October 29, 2008
I found this book hard to read in some parts. It felt so real and I was really able to connect to the characters. I am still angry and sad about the book days later. It is a well written YA novel about the sad life of Robert, a lower socioeconomic Mexican-American in Texas and in California. Where is my happy ending where Robert ends up going to college, saving his mother, and being a good role model for his younger brother?
July 27, 2013
15 November 2003 DRIFT by Manuel Luis Martinez, St. Martin's Press/Picador, March 2003, ISBN 0-312-30995
"I spend the whole day alone in this cube, having to raise the red, white, and blue Christian flag when I want to whizz or even just stretch. It's a drag. But it's my own fault since I just got kicked out of high school again. Twice in two years, and Grams decides she has to send me to a religious school, one of those Christian fundamentalist ones, the kind that keeps students in line by making them sit facing the wall and putting wood partitions between them. One thing Grams didn't count on, though, was all the fuck-ups and caranchos ended up in the same place, and I know I'll get in trouble I never would've found in public school if she hadn't gotten scared that I was going to wind up dead. After eight hours of this place, I'm ready to roll out and do anything--fight, get high, look for girls--just to forget everything until tomorrow. This 'place' is Sunnydale Christian Academy. I know--ridiculous name. Why not just call this motherfucker Happytown? It's embarrassing to tell people when they ask where you go to school. But that's what the place is called and it's as bad as it sounds."
Sixteen year old Robert Lomos is a product of the barrio of San Antonio. He has mastered the attitude and the face. But he is also a kid who has spent years with a bleeding ulcer. Small wonder--he's got a musician father whose long absences and extramarital behavior drove Robert's mother crazy--literally. Robert had spent years as the primary caregiver for his little brother, Antony, until two years ago when Robert's take-control Aunt Naomi drove to Texas to pick up the pieces and transport them back to LA Robert was the piece that didn't fit, the piece left behind to live with his paternal grandmother, and so he hasn't seen his mom or Antony since.
School is consigned to the back-seat of the alcohol and smoke-filled bus that is Robert's life as he cruises the roads he hopes will make him a man and permit him to reunite with his mom and little brother. But his sense of direction seems faulty, and the road filled with potholes and trash, as he repeatedly plows that bus face-first into trouble and dead end streets.
For instance, we get a succession of vivid looks at the work available to a kid in Robert's position:
The Construction Industry:
" I introduce myself and get a few waves and a come'ere gesture from Brace, the foreman. 'You're the new gopher, um?' he says as he sits leaning against a stack of throwaways. 'You'll do fine here if you remember one thing. You's just shit labor.' The others nod lazily. That seems to be the orientation.
"Our crew is one of the last ones in because the building has to be up already before we put up the ceiling. We also put in the insulation, either laying rolls of itchy fiberglass or spraying glop above the ceilings. Brace told me not to ask what's in the shit. 'I don't know, so don't come to me if you start shitting blood.' "
The Restaurant Biz:
"Maurice keeps on going. He talks fast and he makes what he says sound important, like he's on to something you're not. 'See, at other jobs I've had, it don't matter what you do or what you make. If you're just expendable labor, you had something with everyone else around the place. But in the restaurant game, it's different. Goes like this, young man: manager, assistant manager, head waiter, waiters and waitresses, head cook, cooks, cockroaches, rats, bad meat, and finally busboys. There's no chance of mistaking that shit, either. That motherfucker Ayala and his little bitch Ponce, they mean that shit when they say they don't want to hear noise from you. The busboy's only reason is to whip around with a greasy brown tub and clean up after the guts as fast as your ass can take you.' "
The only constant in Robert's life--aside from the pain in his gut and the pain on his face--is Grams:
"She's always trying to teach me how to be tough because she knows I need to be.
" 'You don't ever feel sorry for yourself. Nothing ever been easy for Mexicans. You don't got a choice, boy. The best you hope for is that God lets you see the problems coming so you can get ready.'
"She's old school. She went through the Depression Mexican-style. That means poor, sick, and getting chased off like a dog by cheating-assed farmers and the like. So I gotta believe her, especially now. I mean about trouble. It comes and it comes. I'm trying to learn how to see it better.
"Grams was cool from way back when my folks were still cohabiting. She'd roll up on Saturday mornings and pick me up. That meant Pizza Hut, going to the grocery store, and my one-dollar allowance.
" 'You save that up and you'll have enough to buy what you want.'
"She was like that. Don't get the wrong idea, though. I had to work for that dollar. Every week I was in her big backyard, mowing, pulling weeds, helping her plant shit. Then she'd send me to the store to buy some ice cream. I'd take my bath, eat good, and watch Star Trek with my treat. Then in the morning, what she calls 'early-early,' she'd wake me up to get ready for church."
Robert is given plenty of practice, watching for those problems that just keep coming one after another. And though he is has built up an attitude in order to face the onslaught, inside Robert is a kid who is longing to fix everything and to find his way:
" 'I'm tired of drifting. You don't have to be on the road to do it, either. You can do it right where you live.' I stop for a minute and then decide just to keep on going. 'I get this vision of myself like I'm a needle and I've got this red thread trailing behind me, and everywhere I've gone in my life, I've left this line, a threaded line, back and forth over this patch of white cloth, and if I look back to see if there's some sensible pattern, I find that there's nothing, just this messy crisscrossing web. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean anything. The way I'm thinking now is that this bus is the needle and it's punching across the land. and I'm going to look back when I get to Los Angeles and I'm going to see that I left a beeline in my wake. I've got direction. I'll be able to see that I knew where I was going and figured it out, finally, that the shortest distance between two points is a direct line.'
" 'Well,' Zappa says, 'they might say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but what they don't tell you is that drawing a straight line is the hardest thing anyone can ask you to do.' "
Robert Lomos is a kid who we ache with. Author Manuel Luis Martinez provides an unparalleled look at a Mexican-American culture while painting a picture of a grandmother who loves unconditionally and her damaged teenaged grandson on the edge.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_... http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...
"I spend the whole day alone in this cube, having to raise the red, white, and blue Christian flag when I want to whizz or even just stretch. It's a drag. But it's my own fault since I just got kicked out of high school again. Twice in two years, and Grams decides she has to send me to a religious school, one of those Christian fundamentalist ones, the kind that keeps students in line by making them sit facing the wall and putting wood partitions between them. One thing Grams didn't count on, though, was all the fuck-ups and caranchos ended up in the same place, and I know I'll get in trouble I never would've found in public school if she hadn't gotten scared that I was going to wind up dead. After eight hours of this place, I'm ready to roll out and do anything--fight, get high, look for girls--just to forget everything until tomorrow. This 'place' is Sunnydale Christian Academy. I know--ridiculous name. Why not just call this motherfucker Happytown? It's embarrassing to tell people when they ask where you go to school. But that's what the place is called and it's as bad as it sounds."
Sixteen year old Robert Lomos is a product of the barrio of San Antonio. He has mastered the attitude and the face. But he is also a kid who has spent years with a bleeding ulcer. Small wonder--he's got a musician father whose long absences and extramarital behavior drove Robert's mother crazy--literally. Robert had spent years as the primary caregiver for his little brother, Antony, until two years ago when Robert's take-control Aunt Naomi drove to Texas to pick up the pieces and transport them back to LA Robert was the piece that didn't fit, the piece left behind to live with his paternal grandmother, and so he hasn't seen his mom or Antony since.
School is consigned to the back-seat of the alcohol and smoke-filled bus that is Robert's life as he cruises the roads he hopes will make him a man and permit him to reunite with his mom and little brother. But his sense of direction seems faulty, and the road filled with potholes and trash, as he repeatedly plows that bus face-first into trouble and dead end streets.
For instance, we get a succession of vivid looks at the work available to a kid in Robert's position:
The Construction Industry:
" I introduce myself and get a few waves and a come'ere gesture from Brace, the foreman. 'You're the new gopher, um?' he says as he sits leaning against a stack of throwaways. 'You'll do fine here if you remember one thing. You's just shit labor.' The others nod lazily. That seems to be the orientation.
"Our crew is one of the last ones in because the building has to be up already before we put up the ceiling. We also put in the insulation, either laying rolls of itchy fiberglass or spraying glop above the ceilings. Brace told me not to ask what's in the shit. 'I don't know, so don't come to me if you start shitting blood.' "
The Restaurant Biz:
"Maurice keeps on going. He talks fast and he makes what he says sound important, like he's on to something you're not. 'See, at other jobs I've had, it don't matter what you do or what you make. If you're just expendable labor, you had something with everyone else around the place. But in the restaurant game, it's different. Goes like this, young man: manager, assistant manager, head waiter, waiters and waitresses, head cook, cooks, cockroaches, rats, bad meat, and finally busboys. There's no chance of mistaking that shit, either. That motherfucker Ayala and his little bitch Ponce, they mean that shit when they say they don't want to hear noise from you. The busboy's only reason is to whip around with a greasy brown tub and clean up after the guts as fast as your ass can take you.' "
The only constant in Robert's life--aside from the pain in his gut and the pain on his face--is Grams:
"She's always trying to teach me how to be tough because she knows I need to be.
" 'You don't ever feel sorry for yourself. Nothing ever been easy for Mexicans. You don't got a choice, boy. The best you hope for is that God lets you see the problems coming so you can get ready.'
"She's old school. She went through the Depression Mexican-style. That means poor, sick, and getting chased off like a dog by cheating-assed farmers and the like. So I gotta believe her, especially now. I mean about trouble. It comes and it comes. I'm trying to learn how to see it better.
"Grams was cool from way back when my folks were still cohabiting. She'd roll up on Saturday mornings and pick me up. That meant Pizza Hut, going to the grocery store, and my one-dollar allowance.
" 'You save that up and you'll have enough to buy what you want.'
"She was like that. Don't get the wrong idea, though. I had to work for that dollar. Every week I was in her big backyard, mowing, pulling weeds, helping her plant shit. Then she'd send me to the store to buy some ice cream. I'd take my bath, eat good, and watch Star Trek with my treat. Then in the morning, what she calls 'early-early,' she'd wake me up to get ready for church."
Robert is given plenty of practice, watching for those problems that just keep coming one after another. And though he is has built up an attitude in order to face the onslaught, inside Robert is a kid who is longing to fix everything and to find his way:
" 'I'm tired of drifting. You don't have to be on the road to do it, either. You can do it right where you live.' I stop for a minute and then decide just to keep on going. 'I get this vision of myself like I'm a needle and I've got this red thread trailing behind me, and everywhere I've gone in my life, I've left this line, a threaded line, back and forth over this patch of white cloth, and if I look back to see if there's some sensible pattern, I find that there's nothing, just this messy crisscrossing web. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean anything. The way I'm thinking now is that this bus is the needle and it's punching across the land. and I'm going to look back when I get to Los Angeles and I'm going to see that I left a beeline in my wake. I've got direction. I'll be able to see that I knew where I was going and figured it out, finally, that the shortest distance between two points is a direct line.'
" 'Well,' Zappa says, 'they might say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but what they don't tell you is that drawing a straight line is the hardest thing anyone can ask you to do.' "
Robert Lomos is a kid who we ache with. Author Manuel Luis Martinez provides an unparalleled look at a Mexican-American culture while painting a picture of a grandmother who loves unconditionally and her damaged teenaged grandson on the edge.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_... http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...
April 14, 2024
The French onion soup was gag worthy 😴😴
November 20, 2015
The book Drift was a great book. It had many great aspects to it and was interesting. The book was about a hispanic boy and his troubling life.And believe me its hard, His mm and dad are split up and his mom went kinda crazy after the break up. So after getting out of public school and going to a new school he just tells people his mom is dead. He doesn't live with ither his mom or dad he lives with his grandmom instead. both his mom and dad live in L.A but Robert ( the son and narroter) lives in Texas.
The book drift had alot of strengths but also some weaknesses. A strength was how well the chapters were broken uo. This is just my opnion but I alos didnt like the ending. The end was sad while unexpected it was sad. The book foreshadowed the end and it was still unexpected, Another weakness was sometimes the book would get boring during a transition. Like his trip to L.A was boring to me. Other than that I cant complain. It was a very good book.
I would recomend this book to yougn adults and adults. I say this because I hinestly feel like this book can help you through hard times. It also has alot of viloence and sex in it.It has situations that you have to go through to understand.
The book drift had alot of strengths but also some weaknesses. A strength was how well the chapters were broken uo. This is just my opnion but I alos didnt like the ending. The end was sad while unexpected it was sad. The book foreshadowed the end and it was still unexpected, Another weakness was sometimes the book would get boring during a transition. Like his trip to L.A was boring to me. Other than that I cant complain. It was a very good book.
I would recomend this book to yougn adults and adults. I say this because I hinestly feel like this book can help you through hard times. It also has alot of viloence and sex in it.It has situations that you have to go through to understand.
December 13, 2013
The setting to the Drift can be very related in present day as the same problems, same type of people, same type of urban life as a person who lives in the not so nice part of the town.
Roberto is a troubled boy that goes through events in his life and meets new people that help him grow up. Roberto all really wants is his family back together. His mom is a emotional mess that had to leave with his little brother Atony to take a break. His dad was never there for him or his mom, he always was on the road with his music career always messing up on his mom. Roberto lived with his Grams. Old typical lady that worked. All she wanted for Roberto to start doing better with his life and find himself.
I really enjoyed this book because it can be so related able through real life problems, and events. This book makes you feel the emotion and setting through the whole book.
Roberto is a troubled boy that goes through events in his life and meets new people that help him grow up. Roberto all really wants is his family back together. His mom is a emotional mess that had to leave with his little brother Atony to take a break. His dad was never there for him or his mom, he always was on the road with his music career always messing up on his mom. Roberto lived with his Grams. Old typical lady that worked. All she wanted for Roberto to start doing better with his life and find himself.
I really enjoyed this book because it can be so related able through real life problems, and events. This book makes you feel the emotion and setting through the whole book.
Read
January 31, 2013This book is very inspiring to me, because he is my age sixteen he's trying to put his family back together. Well to start off he lost his, his father is a Latin jazz musician, and has left to San Antonion for a life on the road thing. His mother is shattered by the emotional, and psychological break down and has moved to Los Angeles and has taken her younger son with her. His grand mother is worn down by many years of hard work, and has left. So Robert plans to save up his money and head to California to put his family back together he is Mexican Amerrican kid.
June 20, 2013
This book begins as a gritty account of a Mexican American teenage boy's coming of age in the context of turmoil within his family. As you read on, however, the book becomes so much more than that through the protagonist's relationship with his grandmother. The book is genuine, heartfelt, sharply witty at times, tragic at others, but overall a book that makes you invested in a protagonist because you begin to see him though the eyes of his loving grandmother. I liked the book to begin with but became invested more and more as I continued with Robert on his journey of self-discovery.
May 4, 2010
Really nice story... Especially for the Spanish-Speaking readers. Interisting and drematic. Explain the life of a young boy that has to go through a rough life. By trying to do his best, sometime he would make big mistakes. Rough language.....
May 20, 2011
Its about the main character named Robert who's family broke down. His father keft him and his mom and sibiling at a young age of his.
This was really good, i really recommend it.
This was really good, i really recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews