On the subject of drugged out road trips, James Michener’s The Drifters takes us on a trip through Spain and northern Africa in a Volkswagen Microbus with some young hippies who have lost their way. The trip starts with a draft dodger who escapes the US through Canada. He meets some new friends in Torremolinos, Spain, somebody buys a VW bus, and the adventures roll.

I enjoyed reading this book, even with the conservative Michener’s minor judgment upon these silly youths and their dangerous drugs. Of course, he had to have the obligatory bad acid trip scene. Thankfully, the girl slept through most of her bad trip, so that helped.

One fun thing about the book was all the little quotes at the beginning of each chapter, my favorite of which was, “King Kong died for our sins,” though I’m not quite sure what it means, even after reading this poem. I’m also not sure if the quotes added meaning to the chapters, or if they were just a fun diversion like singing camp songs to pass time along the highway.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Africa, Continental Europe, road tripping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.