'Drop City' seductive trip back in time By SUSAN MORGAN Don't you love it when a book seduces you so thoroughly you look up from its pages bewildered that your surroundings and companions don't match those you've been reading about? And don't you hate it when that same book drops you flat 100-plus pages later, way too invested by then to give up on the increasingly remote chance that the loving feeling will return? Alternately brilliant and maddening, the story soared in its first half as a band of well-drawn 1970s characters sought love, meaning and the perfect high in a place they'd dubbed "Drop City." The saga nearly lost me for good on a surprisingly boring drive through Canada, as the hippies headed north in a caravan -- including a school bus with a ramshackle goat pen on top -- that the Joads would've shunned. But the book redeemed itself big time when two previously separate elements -- the commune members and a barely domesticated Alaska wild man named Sess -- combined to create a tale far more Jack London than Ken Kesey. There were a few acculturation bumps along the way. For example, Sess has only known his not-quite-mail-order bride for a few weeks, yet is unduly fascinated by the "chicks" on the bus. Why, he wonders, don't all women paint each of their toenails a different color? And can it be that every last one of them has burned her bra? Meanwhile, his intrepid wife, Pamela, takes to the backcountry like she was born to it. While the others struggle with cabin fever by late October, she works as hard as any man, taking her solace from strong tea and long reveries watching owls and ravens through the windows of her cabin. Her new friend Star is perhaps the most fleshed-out character, a former schoolteacher and reluctant hippie who has decided to stop sharing her money and body with her brethren, except for a like-minded man with a past, Marco. And Star's ex, Ronnie, aka "Pan," seems to be the "cat" with a plan every commune needs but instead has all the makings of a slimy post-Woodstock car salesman. Or worse. Along with descriptions that dazzle with perfect detail, that's the best thing about "Drop City": The writer understands that nobody is just a caricature, that everyone, absolutely everyone, has a story. How much of that story we want to know is another question. Some of the characters revealed too many quirks to ignore but not enough background to care about. That's irritating when, for example, we know a little about two hippie women named Maya and Merry, but to the end of the book I couldn't tell you which was which. But oh, when Boyle's great, he's astonishing, such as in describing this small-town Alaska drinking establishment: "The place smelled the way it always did, like an old boot stuffed with ground beef, fried onions and stove ash and left out in the sun to fester for a couple of days." Anyone who hasn't smelled that exact aroma just hasn't traveled around the state much. Or this description of one of the hippies: "A woman had got off the bus, dark hair in pigtails, a sharp decisive face, eyes that took you in and spat you back out again.'' All is relatively hip and mellow in the commune's new digs until lingering feuds escalate among the residents, some of whom have taken to Alaska Bush life -- and its attendant firearms -- with a vengeance. Boyle presents us with a chilling and prescient Yeats quote: "Things fall apart; the center will not hold." Like some kind of backcountry Rosetta stone, it's all here: The desperate quest for winter meat, the scourge of bootleggers in the villages, turf wars over property real and human, free love that turns out to be spendy after all. And in a thoroughly harrowing ending -- note to self: never, ever take a slug of booze when it's 40 below outside -- greed spawns deadly consequences and the days of peace and love are left behind forever. Part London's famous story "To Build a Fire," part Hells Angels wreaking havoc at Altamont, and part Peter Pan, "Drop City" has high ambitions that it mostly meets. For readers of a certain age -- those who will recognize the Grateful Dead lyrics sprinkled throughout, might still have a pair of bell bottoms in a closet somewhere and at least toyed with the idea of commune life -- it's a total trip. |