T.C. Boyle: Drop City

Reviewed by JOHN McCRYSTAL

Drop City is the name of a southern Californian commune founded by turned-on, tuned-in, drop-out heir to his family's estate Norm Sender. Hippies from all over find their way to the property, to enjoy peace, love, a harmonious closeness to nature and, of course, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

Things tick over, although there's a sense that they will shortly fall apart. Some of the women are tiring of free love, which seems to favour men rather than women. Not everyone is keen to pitch in and help with the cooking and the dishes, let alone digging lavatory pits and maintaining buildings. Some of the residents are there more for the wild extra-curricular activities than for the universal brotherhood of man, and when a 14-year-old runaway is gang-raped by this element, Norm has an accident in his VW Kombi while under the influence of LSD, and the county serves notice that it has condemned the ramshackle buildings, the writing is on the wall for Drop City.

It so happens Norm is heir to another piece of real estate, a log cabin and animal trap-line on the banks of the Yukon river, Alaska. This, he decides, is where Drop City North will be founded.

Will these soft, blissed-out, no-hoper and mostly vegetarian dwellers-in-the-present survive in the unforgiving wilds, where you must work tirelessly under the midnight sun to lay in enough provender - chiefly meat - for the northern winter, where temperatures drop to 40 below and stay there? After all, tie-dyed muslin is hardly renowned for its thermal qualities.

Boyle weaves the story of Drop City into that of Yukon fur-trapper Sess and his new wife Pamela, struggling against nature and also the malevolent attentions of Joe Bosky, with whom Sess has a long-running and escalating feud. From the outset, the reader savours the prospect of their intersection.

The point of view is loose, shifting from character to character wherever the story needs to move forward. It delightfully mocks the hippy lifestyle and language - the way they struggle with each other's adoptive names ("Pan" is really Ronnie; "Sky Dog" is really Bruce), and even the hip terminology (the narrative is constantly reminding itself that the hip word for guy is "cat"). But it shows how those dedicated to living off the land can do it in Alaska, if they're hard enough. As winter winnows the chaff from the commune, they learn the true meaning of cool, and who has got what it takes to survive.

Drop City is a saga - funny, tense and always engaging. Like, totally groovy, man.

Bloomsbury, $35

* John McCrystal is a Wellington freelance writer.