Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2020
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A story of artistic ambition, personal crisis, and the possibilities and failures of literature, Drifts is the work of an exhilarating and vital writer.
Haunting and compulsively readable, Drifts is an intimate portrait of reading, writing, and creative obsession. At work on a novel that is overdue, spending long days walking neighborhood streets with her restless terrier, corresponding ardently with fellow writers, the narrator grows obsessed with the challenge of writing the present tense, of capturing time itself. Entranced by the work of Rainer Maria Rilke, Albrecht Dürer, Chantal Akerman, and others, she photographs the residents and strays of her neighborhood, haunts bookstores and galleries, and records her thoughts in a yellow notebook that soon subsumes her work on the novel. As winter closes in, a series of disturbances—the appearances and disappearances of enigmatic figures, the burglary of her apartment—leaves her distracted and uncertain ... until an intense and tender disruption changes everything.
"Immersive, exciting ... filled with small moments of magic ... a captivating deconstruction of the writer's process that will reward readers in search for meaning." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The charm of this novel is how it makes this deep uncertainty feel palpable and affecting. [The result is] a lyrical, fragmentary, and heartfelt story about the beauty and difficulty of artistic isolation." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Zambreno is perceptive, funny, and spellbinding as she reflects on and dramatizes the infinite complexities of womanhood and creativity." - Booklist
"Drifts gathers up multiple ways of seeing, feeling and understanding, layering fiction, meditation, biography, confession and prose poetry into one capacious structure. This is an extraordinary book." - Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland
"In Drifts, Kate Zambreno has taken nothing for granted. She has created a spirited, shape-shifting read that is by turns insightful, intimate, speculative, and mischievous. In her search to uncover the form's rich potential, Zambreno is unafraid to show us what she too is made of." - Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond
"Kate Zambreno's writing is mysterious, unclassifiable, and yet intimate and familiar too. Reading her is like looking through a kaleidoscope—the world is at once more beautiful and more terrifying." - Jenny Zhang, author of Sour Heart
"Ravishingly intense and tender[,] an intimate portrait of the mind of a writer on the verge of disappearing... . The message she sends back to us from edge of the abyss is that literature is discourse: a delirious, charged conversation propelled across time and space by desire, lust, confusion, despair and yearning. Utterly original, transfixing, infectious... . I couldn't put it down." - Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, author of Call Me Zebra
This information about Drifts was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kate Zambreno is the author of several acclaimed books including Screen Tests, Heroines, and Green Girl. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, VQR, and elsewhere. She teaches in the writing programs at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
