The Old Drift: A Novel Hardcover – March 26, 2019

When I started this EXTREMELY LONG book I was excited by its tour-de-force ambition and scope and some of the high praise reviews it had received as a Zambian novel. I’m still impressed by many scenes and Serpell’s skill in writing dialogue. But by the end, I couldn’t wait for it to be done. As some other readers have noted, there are too many characters that became difficult to distinguish from one another; too many plot segues in different genres — realism, magical realism, technological science fiction (sort of). While I liked the concept of examining the ancestors of the characters who inhabit the present and future by following the timelines and family threads, while I wanted to better understand the politics — appreciating the twist on Joseph Conrad’s anti-colonialism — and while I liked the IDEAS of connecting virus research with the technological innovations that turn us all into beings in a horde, I ended up questioning the whole production. Some characters are more compelling than others, but I came out of this after five days of marathon reading, just wanting to read a book with characters I care about more deeply, with stories I feel more completely immersed in. And then when I look at the research teams that were assembled by this writer — all listed in the final acknowledgments — I found myself vaguely repulsed by so much ambition and outside support gone awry. I’m aware that not everyone responded this way, but imho, this is a talented, sometimes brilliant writer who should have stuck with short stories or written four or five novels with this material: not one.I'll stick with three stars, but this is not a novel I can imagine recommending to anyone I know looking for a great book to read.

A work of fiction that takes place mostly in Zambia which begins— “It sounds like a sentence: Victoria Falls. A prophecy. At any rate, that’s the joke I used to make until Her Majesty Queen Victoria actually died in 1901, just before I landed on the continent.” Action continues right through to the future in 2023 involving grandmothers, mothers, and children from Italy, England, and Zambia. Plots and connections abound. Stories emanating from the immigrants to Zambia. Could have had more focus. I agree with Nadifa Mohamed: “Serpell is an ambitious and talented writer, with the chutzpah to work on a huge canvas. I was eager to read an African novel that used various genres and voices to put Zambia on the literary map but The Old Drift left me wanting a narrative that took on less but did more. With so many characters and so many incidents the story moves like a silt-laden river; it pools, it floods over, it stagnates.”

I really had no idea what I was getting into, in fact when I first started reading it I contemplated quitting several times, It is long and sometimes frustrating to try to keep track of the characters (the family tree was tremendously helpful) but worth the effort. The imagination, the imagery, the depth of the characters all made it an incredible first novel. It certainly is worth the time and effort and will stay with me for a long time.

I had no idea at all what to expect when I received an advance copy of The Old Drift, but I am beyond happy; I am thrilled to have read it. This is a story that just pulls you in until you are completely immersed. To call it amazing and breathtaking doesn’t do it justice, and to say it is just the story of three multicultural families and the history of a country in Africa is an understatement. It's a sprawling saga, like a mystery you can’t wait to solve, a ball of string that keeps unwinding or an onion with many, many layers. It’s six degrees of separation at its best – the story goes from person to person to person and location to location, but all are cleverly linked. You suddenly look up and go “Oh!” because it’s that person or that place or that event again.The writing is magnificent. The Old Drift is a tale of a changing world, a changing nation, a changing people, with all the love, longing, desire, and loss that go with it. The cruelties and the exploitation, not just by the colonials, but by each other, are shocking. You get so involved with the characters that you want to step in and stop the bad times, let their hopes and dreams come true.This history was at once so foreign to me yet at the same time so familiar, so compellingly filled with the music and scents and sensations of Zambia brought to life by author Namwali Serpell. A cloud of sadness and futility hang over everything, yet hope, determination and courage push through. It’s sometimes magical, sometimes horrifying. It’s history, fairytale, romance and science fiction all rolled into one satisfying story. This is not a book you read lightly, not one you read to escape, but a book you won’t soon forget.

The book starts out with the British's Colonial invasion of South Africa, specifically Rhodesia, the name derived from Cecil Rhodes, the head of the British South Africa Company and the frontiersmen, who stumbled through a land untamed by the white man yet occupied and wholly a part of the land were the indigenous blacks who were enslaved by the whites, nevertheless, maintaining their dignity and though enslaved overcame the colonials yet found themselves still enslaved to the system the whites left behind.The book interwieves familial relationships between whites, blacks, British, Italians and Indians, through the decades and if one is not diligent, one will lose the wieving.Revolutionary fervor drives many of the main characters to a finish in which the damn, which holds back the Zambezi River is accidentally destroyed.The entire story is told through the perspective of the hive mosquito swarm mind amalgamated with the microdrone swarm a product of 21st century computer technology and the internet.An incredibly well written book, which, in my opinion could become a classic.

This story spans decades and continents and mixes the real with the surreal. It isn’t an easy read but it is a compelling read. High recommend.

Namwali Serpell has certainly made a big splash with her first novel, and with writing like this she will hopefully give us many more good reads in the future. This has already won more than one award, and although really you could argue that there is some sci-fi here as such, it is not really what the majority of people would label it, more like techno, so it is perhaps a bit of a surprise that this won the Arthur C Clarke Award. With that aside though, there are at times perhaps a few too many coincidences gathered together, but the author does manage to pull these off just about, and of course with something like this you are working in the artificial framework of a novel. Showing the country of Zambia and indeed Africa itself is not as strong as it could be, and at times you do feel like you are ultimately reading a group of short stories that are interlinked.Set mainly in Zambia this does on occasion find us elsewhere, such as Italy and England, and even India. We read of three generations of families; all the sections primarily based on a person from each family. The story also has at times what can only be described as a Greek Chorus which pops up at the beginning and end, and after each section. Taking us through the 20th Century so we see how Africa was affected by colonialization, Empire building and exploitation, but this could have been done better and with more emphasis at times, and we finish up in the near future. This even has a hint of magic realism, and yes there really was a Zambian Space Program, and so some of the characters that are here were very real people.This does raise certain themes, and as the three separate families are European and Asian as well as African this does take in racism and of course the bigotry that can come about due to mixed marriages. Along with this we can see mention of colonialization, although this does not come across as strongly as it could, but as we read here, nowadays everyone seems to own most of the same type of gadgets, so the world for us is certainly becoming more standardized. This also takes in the proliferation of AIDS and the climate crisis. Although as I have already mentioned, this is mainly set in Zambia, there is not enough detail as such, on the political and economic situation in the country, but those who bother to look up or already know, just over 60% of the country are poor, and so when we read of items that are dumped from elsewhere and people trying to repair and sell them on, so you will realise why, and why there is a booming business in such activities.An historical novel, with a hint of magic realism, and Afrofuturism this is obviously a mix of genres, making it not quite easy to compartmentalize, but it does make for more than a good enough read, what with family saga added to the mix, and seeing how the different original families end up intertwining and relating to each other over the century. The big problem with this is that it tries to take on big issues, such as disease and the climate on too small a scale, with really just one country, and these are issues that affect us all, though it does highlight such things as how Africa is being used at times as an experimental playground for trying new things out. This could have made big bold statements, but instead just raises smaller points, although as we see by the end, perhaps the biggest statement this does make, is that even with the best of intentions, mankind can create bigger problems that are still unresolved.

An interesting story set mostly in Zambia, and covering the period from colonial times (briefly) all the way through to the modern day, and the search for an AIDS vaccine. There is a eclectic collection of characters, mostly written with warmth, but then undermined by the odd cutting comment. However, the wide variety of characters does mean that quite a few ultimately end up being defined by one or two characteristics rather than feeling fully rounded human beings.The writing is pretty good, and I was intrigued by the early chapters of the book, but it then takes a long, long time to get anywhere. The novel is written as a series of vignettes, and some of them are very, very good. But others appear to be the author just channeling her wry views on this subject or that through one of her characters, and which rather break the spell. Mainly, though, there are just too many vignettes which do not really move the plot forward, so it gets increasingly tedious. I think the author would have done better to have chopped 1/3 off the length of the book, and perhaps brought in some clearer foreshadowing.I confess I gave up at the 75% mark, so do not know how it ends, or why it qualifies as Sci-Fi to fit the Arthur C Clarke award criteria. (There is a brief fantastical element at the beginning, which then makes occasional reappearances, but is hardly genre defining.)

Following three generations of three families that gradually become intertwined, The Old Drift is a story set in Zambia during and after colonisation.This is the kind of book for which the phrase 'genre-busting' was created. Serpell's wonderfully crafted epic brings together elements of magical folktale with the warped perspectives of colonial writers, romance, action thriller, coming-of-age novel and science fiction.The characters are rich, plentiful, and carefully brought together. We have a girl born covered in magical hair, a blind tennis player caught up in a forbidden romance, and eventually a science-fiction tale including an AIDS vaccine and smartphone-like 'beads' that are injected in the skin. The novel ends with the three children of the previous generations taking on the capitalist post-colonial hegemony with the fervour that only the young can manage.This is a novel worth taking time over. A lot of science fiction fans will be (and have been) attracted to the story because of the Arthur C Clarke award. They could easily be disillusioned by the lack of typical sci-fi for the first two-thirds of the book. But this is almost a deliberate strategy, even if Serpell couldn't have predicted the award. As readers, we are challenged to confront the internalised racism that would make us think that this very Zambian story couldn't be suited to sci-fi, but it is.

This sweeping saga is audacious in its embrace of multiple genres, races, places, generations, languages, and even science, yet intensely intimate, funny and sexy in its sly understanding of people and gossip worthy storytelling. Facts retold through Zambian eyes of history and herstory triggered memories, recognition and insights in a way I have not experienced in a long time. What initially seemed showy-off - the italicized chapter introductions - well, what a pay off when all became clear at the end! I loved, loved, loved this book. A masterpiece.

At times this novel is brilliantly written and closely observed, but it it is a long read and drags towards the end. The real puzzle is that it received a science fiction award. The sci-fi element is vestigial, and not central to the story.