Originally posted April 1st 2024 | 7 mins | Spoiler Free!

If I were to take a page out of one of my favourite singers on Spotify right now, MALINDA, I would create a sub-category on this blog called “I WISH I WROTE THAT“. Malinda’s playlist of the same name is summed by with ‘Songs I desperately wish I wrote because they say something better than anything else I’ve found’. I like this concept. She’s not casting a judgement on these songs and saying they’re good or bad, whether they’re masterpieces or mediocre. Technically they could be any of these things (although I’m sure we can assume that she believes most of the songs on the list are objectively good pieces of song writing). No, instead of her judgements we get a peak into how her mind works; what kind of music speaks to her and feels like something she would be proud to have personal connections to had it been hers. I find it’s a very personal playlist, even though it’s likely she’s never even met most of the artists included in that list.

If I were to make a list of the same name but with prose instead of songs, I could see Drift by Caryl Lewis being on there. I have a subscription to Audiobooks.com (completely not sponsored – I’m flattered if you think this looks like an influential blog) and I picked Drift up on a whim with my monthly credits. I find Audiobooks.com is a weird one because it has some surprisingly big titles that you might have been gunning after as well as I massive backlog of random mediocre titles you’ve never even wanted to consider (I’m thinking of one particular sub-genre right now; if you’re my partner reading this, you know what terrifying little corner I’m referring to). I had never heard of Drift before seeing it amongst the month’s selected titles and since nothing else was grabbing me, I picked it up. It’s a relatively short audiobook in comparison to some, clocking in at just under seven hours, and I listened to a lot of it while dismantling the corridors of my former workplace who’s venue had just been bought out by a larger developer (Fun times). Since I listened to it while completing other tasks, I think I’m woefully underprepared to provide a comprehensive assessment of the book. I’m sure there are bits I missed, subtle nuances overlooked and sections swiftly forgotten about. Hence, this is a “thoughts” piece and not a full review. But, rest assured, I’ve already saved it to my Waterstones wishlist as I plan to buy a physical copy for a more in-depth read of it in the future. However I think I definitely understood enough to say that this book was unexpectedly right up my alley. A subtle magical realism story with intertwinings of a national folklore and modern day commentary that produces a heartfelt narrative. It’s the sort of story I wish I had the chops to write in the future: Magic with profound meaning.

Drift was 2023’s Wales Book of the Year and Caryl Lewis is a acclaimed Welsh-Language author. This is actually her second book to win the Wales Book of the Year, with her Welsh language novel Y Gwreiddyn winning it in 2017 for Welsh Language Fiction. Drift follows the story of Nefyn, a peculiar young woman who lives on the coast of Wales with her overly protective brother Joseph, and Hamza, an imprisoned Syrian mapmaker who is being held at a military base along the same coast. The paths of these two lonely and detached souls cross one fateful night during a storm of mythic proportions and a connection forms between two people who would likely never have met had they never been taken so far from their homes…

So what was it that I liked so much? The intertwining of the magical realism with literary fiction was expertly done. You could read the whole first half of the book and not realise you were gearing up to something otherworldly. It’s a subtle magical realism that you descend into, with the fantasy only tied to one key element so there is no overuse of the improbable.  I feel this is implemented masterfully; it takes a particular level of craftmanship for you to believe that something fantastical makes perfect sense in the progression of the narrative. It’s solid roots in Welsh folklore also grounds the ‘magic’ part of the genre with our present world so the otherworldness doesn’t hit you completely out of left field (although perhaps if you’re not a frequent enjoyer of fantasy or magical realism in general, I can see how you would disagree). It is a story exploring displacement, human connection and love (to pin down a few of the central themes) and I think the tools Lewis selected from stories past and present to depict this were perfect for the job. The air of mystery that lingers across the story like a misty seaside fog makes for a hauntingly engaging, dreamlike atmosphere. It gives you just enough to create a full enough picture of these characters and their lives but space for your own assumptions to give it the gripping element of the unknown that made folklore mythos so captivating on the human mind. Drift is a story that richly embodies both it’s setting – a sleepy rural town on the coast of Wales – and it’s folklore influence through it’s craftmanship and storytelling. This aesthetic was the thing that really hooked me into it and makes it my kind of story, through and through. What can I say? I’m a simple girl: I see folkloric canon adapted brilliantly into the present day and me likey.

That isn’t to say I was instantly charmed to the story from the very first chapter, however. Neyfn’s uncanniness that was built up throughout the beginning and progression of the story didn’t grasp me as magically mysterious until about 2/3 through, when we hear the story of her and Joseph’s mother, and once that clicked into place my inner cryptozoologist started to quiver in excitement. In retrospective, this was something else that impressed me and made me wish I could write like that; to twist something that at first glance sounds perfectly plausible in reality into something surreal. Characters that didn’t hold strong places in my heart in the first half began to become more endeared to me as we went on. Efa and Emrys unexpectedly stole my heart as we got fully into the second-half and my heart even started to soften for Joseph, who I didn’t care terribly much for in the beginning. All the characters softly paint very reflective pictures of both human loneliness and love.

I will admit that there were some aspects the book had to wheedle me around to. The phase “love story” caught my eye in the book description and made me want to let out a begrudging sigh. Romance wasn’t really my aspiration as I felt the story would have been just as strong had it been a platonic connection of two displaced souls, trying to exist in lives that they sometimes fail to recognise. I didn’t think romantic affection was necessary for us to feel a heartfelt connection between them, there being just as much strength in the coming together of two people who would never expect to meet except under exceptional circumstances, from two vastly different lives but who are parallel souls in their relationship to the world. I was still holding out some hope that the “love” part of that phrase could be overarching and didn’t completely negate my hopes. However Nefyn and Hamza do, of course, develop a warm romantic connection and it thankfully didn’t put me off the book at all. It is a nicely-done love story and Lewis crafts it with the gentle touch she uses throughout the whole novel so its hardly polarizing. I am still of the opinion that the story could have been just as sentimental had they had formed a deep, platonic connection, but I understand the allure of romance and it does fit into the folklore canon of these types of tales, so I can hardly complain.

From looking at some other reviews of Drift on The Storygraph, it appears the slow, drifting (excuse the pun) nature of the book’s narrative wasn’t for everyone. Some people seemed to think the plot wasn’t as tightknit or fully explored. I only want to briefly comment on this so that you, dear reader, are fully aware of this opinion from people who may have enjoyed the story on page rather than through headphones like I did. In one sense I could see this being a strength of the novel – after all, what better story to drift in-between it’s subjects and their occupied spaces than a story set right next to the lulling waves – but I can understand that not being everyone’s cup of tea. Other critical reviews – like this one from The Irish Times – are glowing and pin down some of the same praises I have for the novel. So even more reason to give it shot.

I am certainly not trying to turn you away from the audiobook either; it is narrated by Rebecca Trehearn whose gentle, smooth Welsh tongue is a perfect fit for this story and adds strongly to the wonder and intrigue. Her voice was truly immersive and made listening to this book relaxing, even with its emotional content and more heightened moments. Although perhaps I would say that, as I first selected this title for my next listen in the hopes it would help me drift off the sleep at 2am in the morning…

One thing you may have noticed is how little I have touched on Hamza’s side of the story, and the simple reason being for that is I am unequipped to judge it. This side of the tale handles reflections and sentiments on the Syrian war, and I wonder if the experiences reflected upon by Hamza are in-tune with the cultural feeling felt by the people of Syria or if, perhaps, they are handled too softly and therefore fail to be provocative? Of course, I am not so idiotic to assume that a single character in one story can encapsulate all of the notions and nuances of a nation’s lived experience, but I would be curious to know the wider response towards Lewis’s crafting of Hamza’s tale. The novel does not dance around the presence of Islamaphobia, displacement and violence in stories such as these and I think for Lewis to write this story that was inevitable and honest.

To see how critically acclaimed this novel is after already tasting the proof in the pudding, I am sad that I had to fish it out of a random selection on my Audiobook provider and that typing Drift into Goodreads or StoryGraph isn’t enough to see Caryl Lewis’s excellent work at the top of the suggestions. I could see this being a marvellous entryway into contemporary Welsh fiction and if I possessed the skill of how to read Cymraeg my next step would definitely be to explore her wider work as I’m sure there are similar pearls to be found there.

---