The Drifters (novel)

The Drifters

First edition cover
Author	James A. Michener
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Fiction
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1971
Media type	print
Pages	751pp.
ISBN

The Drifters is a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener, published in 1971 by Random House. The novel follows six young characters from diverse backgrounds and various countries as their paths meet and they travel together through parts of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Mozambique. The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, George Fairbanks, who is an investment analyst for the fictional company World Mutual Bank in Switzerland. Mr. Fairbanks is connected with nearly every character in some way, and they all seem to open up to him throughout the novel in one way or another.

In the first chapter, Joe is introduced as a disenfranchised twenty-year-old youth who is enrolled at the University of California during the Vietnam War. After Joe realizes that with his grades he is going to get drafted, he hitchhikes to Yale University, where he gets the name of a professor who may be able to get him across the border into Canada. After being referred to a woman in Boston named Gretchen, she helps him get into Canada, and he eventually goes to Torremolinos, Spain. While looking for a job and a place to stay, he takes over the ownership of a bar called The Alamo, and a man named Jean-Victor finds him a place to stay in Torremolinos.

In keeping with the theme throughout the book, the second chapter is about the character Britta, an 18-year-old girl from Tromsø, Norway. After finishing school, she finds a job in an office at the docks, but eventually becomes curious about the world beyond Tromsø, and goes to vacation in Torremolinos, Spain for fifteen days. Once in Torremolinos, she loves it and finds a job as a waitress in a bar called The Alamo. Here, a man named Jean-Victor finds her a place to stay, where another newcomer to Torremolinos, Joe, is already staying.

Of the main characters in the book, Monica goes through trials and tribulations as she transitions from living as royalty in a foreign country to being forced out and finally finding her way to Torremolinos to join the rest of the cast in the book. She is introduced as living with her father in the Republic of Vwarda, where Monica becomes rebellious and begins to cause a stir in Vwarda's Royal Family. She is forced out of the country and runs away with an airline pilot to Torremolinos, where she can live on her monthly allowance from her grandmother. She meets a man named Jean-Victor, who finds her a place to live with a woman from Norway and a man from the United States.