I Read Books: Drift by Craig Rodgers

 

Drift by Craig Rodgers

Charlie is a salesman for a book printer. He travels to clients across America, to tell them how books wear out, to encourage them to order new ones.

The orders go through on the website, if they put his name in they get a small discount and he gets a commission. The books are bibles, his clients mostly churches. He can’t tie his tie.

Charlie’s itinerary keeps changing. He misses meetings, interrupts study groups. He’s been on the road a long time, living out of hotel rooms, eating in diners. His only constant contact is Jess at the office. The further he travels the more strangers he meets. Carnies and gamblers and odder, weirder people.

Charlie falls apart. His route falls apart. The world falls apart as everywhere he goes becomes darker and stranger. He keeps going on, not quite giving up.

The novel offers a vision of the isolation of being on the road, of the pointlessness of travel in the age of the internet, of being a corporate lackey without supervision. And then it takes it deeper, outside of normal life. To weird games of cards in backrooms. To fellow travellers who never give you their name but know all about your business. To meetings with people who want, but don’t need what you’re selling, and to travel on even when the travelling is pointless and you’ve abandoned purpose, truth, honesty, rational bounds.

Read This: For a look into the dark and absurd underside of being on the road
Don’t Read This: Charlie has no idea what he’s doing, and just sinks into oddness without any introspection
Disclosure: Malarkey Books sent me a review copy on behalf of Death Of Print Press, who seem to be sold out; the book is available at various online stores