The Drift

by John Ridley

He was Charles Harmon, a black man “living white” and living well—beautiful wife, German car, big house—in an upper-upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.

He is Brain Nigger Charlie, a train tramp eking out a ragged existence on the railroads, leaning on drugs to keep him from thinking about everything he had, everything his creeping dementia has forced him to run from.
Charlie’s been asked a desperate favor: find the seventeen-year-old niece of the man who taught him how to survive the rails—a girl lost somewhere on the High Line, the “corridors of racist hate” along the tracks of the Pacific Northwest. Charlie has little hope of finding her alive, but the request is an obligation he can’t refuse. The search is a twisted trail that leads from Iowa to Washington State, mixing lies and deceit, hate and hopelessness, and brutal, stubbornly unsolved murders. All of which Charlie is prepared to meet in kind. What he isn’t prepared
for is a path that will eventually lead him back to what he thought no longer existed—his own humanity—though the toll may turn out to be his life.

At once stunningly visceral and psychologically complex, furiously paced and deeply empathic, The Drift is John Ridley’s most ambitious, most galvanizing novel yet.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Audiobook, Crime

1 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

John Ridley IV (born October 1965)[2] is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Crime. His most recent work is the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.


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This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

fast-paced neo-noir re tough-as-nails ex-corporate hobo, equipped w/ groovy chip kidd cover -- where, you ask, is the blockbuster movie adaptation? welllllll said protag is called "brain N-word charlie;" he has a "goony stick" for administering beatdowns named "george plimpton" whom he talks to throughout; & his main hobbies are gobbling E & ket. being a weirdo, coulda taken all that in stride... harder to pardon was a hateful and p dehumanizing verbal attack on a char of indeterminate gender for being such. the john ridley-curious should def prioritize everybody smokes over this, as much as i'd like to full-throatedly recommend a novel w/ another hobo character named "stupid dumbass."

[John Bruni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book from John Ridley. This one is about a Black man who used to "live white" until a vision/dream drove him into a life of riding the rails. He loads himself with ketamine and ecstasy to keep the vision/dream away as he drifts from city to city without much purpose aside from making sure he never falls asleep. One day a fellow drifter asks him for a favor: to find his niece, the one person he cares about in the world. She's taken to riding the rails, herself, and he wants to save her from herself. It's a hellish nightmare ride into a world of drugs and Nazis and what Hunter S. Thompson used to call "bad craziness." And of course there is a twist at the end. When it comes to Ridley, there always seems to be a twist. One thing is for sure: you'll never see George Plimpton or, oh, say, Elle Macpherson the same way again . . .

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about living on the rails

[Madlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was very weird once the brain nigger started looking for his fiends niece on the railroads.

[Jhn P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic! A real gem.

[Cleverusername2]

I liked this book a lot, it gave me a whole new perspective on the homeless guys who would come into the library where I worked (Olympia Washington was a hub on the Pacific Coast rail lines) without being overly sentimental like, say, "Neverwhere". You got to love a hard-boiled mystery story where the lead character is not only insane and homeless but also a Ketamine and Ecstasy addict. A reviewer on NPR compared it to The Lord of the Rings, where this unlikely hero is on an epic journey into a land of pure evil, with Spokane Washington taking the place of Mordor.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given this book more stars. It certainly has stayed with me and is an engrossing read. But some things I don't neccessarily enjoy in my stories, like homosexual rape in a first person narrative, that get seared into your mind. Perhaps this and other types of violence doesn't other you. If so its a story that you won't forget. And make no mistake it is a very violent story and the first person voice seems to amplify it all.

[Sarah Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fun. It's not the best book you will ever read, but it will entertain you and you will enjoy yourself.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this three and a half stars.. gritty, violent look at life and death on the rails.