I just loved this book. The description of the California and Alaskan scenery is some of my favorite. This is my dream in life. To have been born in the 60's, living the hippie lifestyle. The whole communal living with its good and bad qualities, the music. I think I could have done without the free love though. The story is about a group of hippies living of the land in California who later move their commune up to Alaska because their guru's uncle left him some land up there. Mean time we follow the story of the residents of Boynton, Alaska; some of whom wind up being neighbors of the hippies. Both stories are very engaging and there are plenty of characters to follow. I would just love it if Boyle would follow this up with a continuing tale of these characters. ( )

Richie's Picks: DROP CITY by T. Coraghessan Boyle, Viking Press, March 2003

"Hide, witch, hide
the good folks come to burn thee
their keen enjoyment hid behind
a gothic mask of duty..." --Paul Kanter (1970)

How did Peace and Love mesh with Black and White? How did neophyte
Back-to-the Earth suburban kids relate to the real deal: trappers and other
backwoods individualists who'd never even SEEN a thermostat (no less padded
down the hall on the wall-to-wall to spin one to the right at the first
instant the evening temperature dipped below tee-shirt weather)? And what
were the limits to and the real effects of Free Love?

Besides the fact that I am always eager to read what T. C. Boyle has come up
with next, and the fact that DROP CITY begins just outside my adopted town of
Sebastopol, California, it also caught my attention--when I discovered it a
couple of weeks ago at NCIBA--because the story is set at a commune in 1970.

"...Put your old ladies back into bed
Your old men back in their graves
Cover their ears so they can't hear us sing
Cover their eyes so they can't see us play
Get out of the way
Let the people play
We're gonna get down on you
Come alive all over you
Dancin' down into your town..."

1970. I was a high school sophomore back East, a young antiwar protester, a
founder of the Ecology Club. I read Jerry Rubin's DO IT for an English book
report. It was just a couple of weeks into that school year when Daryl
Dobson came into biology crying because the guitarist Daryl had styled his
wild hair after--Jimi Hendrix--had just been found dead.

Fast forward a few years:

I'm a student at UConn, frequently daydreaming about Northern California
(which I'd never experienced) and lamenting that I'd been born a decade too
late to have experienced the pinnacle of civilization at places whose names
such as "Morning Star" were, even then, eminently familiar to me.

"...Tyrannosaurus Rex was destroyed before
By a furry little ball that crawled along
The primeval jungle floor
And he stole the eggs of the dinosaur
Close your eyes and create the sound
Open your hands and rebuild the ground
We are egg snatchers
Flashin' sunshine children
Diamond thieves..."

But, no, despite having now spent the past 18 years living in a town known
for them (and, indeed, having worked alongside people who were really
"there"), I never did experience that lifestyle. Too much of a worker, I
suppose. Too arrogant, too much of an ingrained political activist. No
matter how many Dead shows I lost myself at, I couldn't relate to the band's
apolitical stance. Instead, I delighted being able to think to myself, "I
told you so!" when they finally switched gears and announced their
involvement in the Rainforest movement. Come on! How the hell can you
contentedly live in Eden, if they're building a nuclear power plant a dozen
miles upwind or dropping napalm on little kids?

"...You unleash the dogs
Of a grade B-movie star governor's war
While you sit in the dark
Insane with the fear of dying
We'll all ball in your parks
insane with the flash of living
I AM ALIVE
I AM HUMAN
I WILL BE ALIVE AGAIN
So drop your f___in' bombs
Burn your demon babies
I WILL BE ALIVE AGAIN..."

DROP CITY has the same problems that (I've since been told by my
"experienced" friends.) really existed at our community's communes: Two
bathrooms for fifty or sixty people. A couple of dozen tourists "dropping
in" for dinner. A handful of hard workers and a hoardful of stoned leeches.
Not to mention "unsympathetic" neighbors and authority figures. I can only
cringe at the vision of the psychedelic circus that Boyle creates at Drop
City, thirty-two years and a couple of miles away from where I'm now sitting,
and the repercussions that so logically follow.

So when they're about to fall over the cliff (actually, when they're
three-quarters of the way down the cliff and the ground is coming up at them
really quickly), the good citizens of Drop City hop on the magic bus and head
for Alaska where you don't have to deal with the (mutter, mutter) fascist
Building Inspectors, and cops and judges and tourists, and draft boards.

"...HEY DICK!
Whatever you think of us is totally irrelevant
Both to us now and to you
We are the present
We are the future
You are the past
Pay your dues and get outta the way
'Cause we're not the way you used to be
When you were very young..."

The hairy, unwashed characters of Drop City (as well as the "neighbors" of
Drop City North) are well-drawn and recognizable without being mere
caricatures. Caring or clueless, funny or somber, bossy or get-along--all
sorts of merging and clashing dispositions and attitudes are present in
respect to work, race, children, sex, drugs, diet, and decision-making.
Standing out amid this impressive and extensive cast of characters are Ronnie
(AKA Pan) and Paulette (AKA Star, goat milker extraordinaire), who together
have made the pilgrimage west from New York. Also notable are a young
Alaskan frontier couple (Sess and Pamela) who are the real deal.

"...We're something new
We don't quite know what it is
Or particularly care
We just do it -
You gotta do it
Open your eyes there's a new word a-coming
Open your eyes there's a new world today
Open your hearts people are lovin'
Open it all we're here to stay..."

DROP CITY is a major work of historic fiction, an incredibly haunting look at
what that Peace and Love stuff sometimes meant, and a book that I'll never
forget. It is unquestionably the most enjoyable adult book that I've read
this year. While this is NOT one that I'll be turning my middle school
students on to, it is unquestionably relevant to older young adults who are
in the process of finding their way while wandering through the shadows of a
war-mongering President, plastic consumeristic idiocy, sexual exploration
(and exploitation), and the latest in drugs.

"...Open it
Open it
Open that door."

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy at aol.com ( )

Last time I was looking for a book to read my girlfriend was watching a TV show about California hippies "living off the land" and some Alaskan lady and her son doing the same... whoever produced that must be a Boyle fan. It reminded me that I'd enjoyed this book the first time so I figured I'd give it a reread.
Just as good the second time.
Your usual Boyle fare... I just want to know what happens next! ( )

Boring story! ( )

i'm thinking this is a wonderfully layered book... exploring what it means to belong to any society, and where the line is between compromising for the good of society as a whole & compromising one own ideals ... there are so many things to think about with this book, my favorite brain tickler: who is the tourist & who is actually living here -- living here being a bigger responsibility personally & communally than just existing here. ( )