Drop City

by John Freeman

Drop City

By T.C. Boyle Viking, 444 pp., $25.95

Given that Drop City is a T.C. Boyle novel, it should come as little surprise that the eponymous village of the book's title is not some hamlet perched above a gorge, but a commune in Sonoma, Calif., where hippies congregate for free love, rock 'n' roll and, of course, more than a few pot-laced brownies. With this setup, it seems likely that Drop City would evolve into a satire of the '60s excesses and the burnouts that tried to keep the toot going; 10 years ago, Boyle might have written exactly that story and had us laughing all the way through. But entering his third decade of publishing fiction, Boyle does something a little different. Sure, he has his fun with some of the flakier denizens of Drop City. But by focusing on three who are somewhat sincere about their journey through this world, Boyle delivers an affecting drama that says a lot about the American dream.

Landscape, as in Boyle's previous fiction, is at the center of that dream as the Drop City folk decide to pick up and move their commune to Alaska as an attempt to outrun village infighting. The leaders also think relocating north might make a stronger "back to the woods" statement. The only problem is that once Boyle's merry pranksters arrive in Alaska they find -- much as the territory's original explorers did -- that the state already has a few residents, several of whom are none too happy to have a 24-hour bongo-drum party going on close by. As Boyle toggles back and forth between a local Alaskan fur-trapper and the hippies who wish they could take his place, Drop City delves deeper into its trio of protagonists: Star, her ex-boyfriend, Pan, and her new companion, Marco, who's a rebel with a brain. Against the backdrop of Alaska's stunning wilderness, which Boyle paints with cheeky respect, these characters' fumbled attempt to make the world anew seems touchingly sincere, if wrong-headed.

Unlike the characters of, say, Tim O'Brien's dour recent novels, Boyle's are not disillusioned or completely whacked out. They are merely seeking the beautiful, even if that means chasing the vapor trail of a dying revolution. In Drop City they stumble into just about every pitfall such a quest can present, and thanks to Boyle's winning humor, we read about such antics with patient understanding, rather than tired scorn.