Local California Noir

Published in 2007, Drift is a novel composed of various intersecting narratives that encapsulate the city of rage, the San Diego city space and the sea of lives that inhabit it. The central narrative follows the life Joe Blake, a downwardly mobile part-time English professor as he falls in love with a former student, Theresa Sanchez, a single mother struggling to find herself in the midst of the daily grind. As the connection between the two of them becomes more intense, they discover a common yearning for a more authentic life, a deeper sense of being that a city like San Diego just doesn't provide. On their journey they explore the meaning of identity, community, sexuality, spirituality, and justice. As Blake wanders through the county's wasteland, the reader encounters a drunken sailor and a prostitute. Later, the novel follows the descent of one of Joe's students into homelessness and insanity. This narrative is juxtaposed with that of a pious office worker fleeing to the suburbs of San Diego at rush hour. As the novel continues, the minor characters include a retired cannery worker, a flophouse resident, a cultural critic, an editor, a labor organizer, a Vietnamese immigrant working in a restaurant, a Somalian taxi driver, a maid in a desert motel, a speed addict, an elderly blues man, a suicidal businessman, and others. Their stories range from the sacred to the profane and take the reader to a wide range of locations both physical and mental. What I really always liked about this book is Miller's historical narrative inserts. Seems everything godly and ancient is quickly destroyed in the materialistic confusion that a place like San Diego generates. Readers of Henry Rollins' Killifornia or Visitors To Los Angeles will appreciate this important piece of narrative. Don't come here. There is nothing to see. In sum, Drift is a philosophical, historical, and political novel that challenges the reader to really look at the price of living somewhere that has only one thing going for it: nice weather (and having lived here so long, that really is the only thing SD has going for it). It is a journey that, hopefully, will result in both discovery and more questioning in trying to unravel America's 'Finest City'.