Classics with a Message

Boyle, T. Coraghessan. Drop City. London: Bloomsbury, 2004. (Paperback)

T. Coraghessan Boyle often presents the idea that civilisation is a primitive struggle of survival of the fittest. However in Drop City Boyles writing is satirical and also comical as characters resist acknowledging their ineptitude. Drop City is a commune on a ranch in Sonoma County, California in the 1960’s.  Norm Sender espouses “Voluntary Primitivism”. Star comes from another commune and tells how life lit her up day and night.  In fact there are few to look after the ranch and drug and alcohol abuse are widespread. Drop City is a haven for the self-interested. Star’s boyfriend supports free sex at the moment he chooses and looks for exotic meals cooked by others.

Drop City is juxtaposed  with the lifestyle of  Sess  Harder, a trapper in Alaska , who grows his own crops and keeps stores for winter. Sess is wooing Pamela McCoon, an Anchorage native, who is culling the locals to find the fittest “survivor”. Norm is facing eviction in California and so moves to land owned by his uncle in Alaska, where Sess has settled. Some of the commune move with Norm. In fact the goals of all participants is to live a life in harmony with nature. Boyle depicts idealists  with their heads in the clouds. However there is gentler comedy here than Boyle’s usual satire.