What if hippies ruled the wild frontier?

TC Boyle packs a busload of hippies off to Alaska in Drop City
Will Sidelsky
Published on Sat 5 Apr 2003 18.20 EST

Drop City
by TC Boyle
Bloomsbury £16.99, pp464

In America TC Boyle is a highly respected novelist and short story writer. Outside his native country, his talents are perhaps less widely recognised. On the evidence of his ninth novel, this is a pity. Drop City is an impressively accomplished work, which manages to be consistently gripping in spite of its unconventional subject matter. Set in 1970, it focuses on two communities which appear very different, but in fact have much in common. One, Drop City, is a hippy commune in sunny California; the other, Boynton, is a remote village in the Alaskan interior.

To begin with, the two societies could not appear more distinct. Drop City is a place where free love rules and drug-taking is endemic. The inhabitants of Boynton, meanwhile, face an uphill struggle just to stay alive. Climatic conditions are such that mere survival necessitates extraordinary self-discipline.

In such an environment, opportunities for hedonistic behaviour are limited. But despite appearing so unalike, the two communities actually share a number of characteristics. Both are riven by internal discord. Humdrum realities threaten the hippies' 'peace and love' ideals: jealousy gets in the way of sexual freedom; the commune's open-doors policy results in some unpleasant characters turning up, including a gang of rapists.

Both worlds seem permanently poised on the brink of catastrophe. Every scene appears to be building up to some disaster, which then never quite materialises. Because of this, the early sections of the novel lack a clear sense of direction; having created his two worlds, it is as if Boyle doesn't quite know what to do with them. Then, midway through, the problem resolves itself. Faced with the threat of imminent closure, the inhabitants of Drop City decide to relocate to Alaska, where their leader, Norm, owns a cabin in - you guessed it - Boynton. The hippies acquire an old school bus, and begin the long migration northwards.

There is something inherently funny about a bunch of hippies pitching up in a remote rural location. When Drop City's inhabitants finally make it to Alaska, Boyle wisely milks the comedy for what it is worth. But his real purpose in bringing the two worlds together is less comedic than anthropological. Take away a hippy's drugs, doctrine of free love and his paint (Boyle seems to be suggesting) and is he really so different from your backwoodsman? Aren't both in retreat from the mainstream?

This is an interesting insight, since the drop-out culture of the Sixties is often portrayed - at least in literature - as something exceptional in American history. But by reconnecting it with that stock American figure - the pioneer - Boyle seems to be suggesting that the hippy movement wasn't so radical as is often supposed, that it was actually a continuation of a tendency present right from the start of the nation's history.

If Drop City has a weakness, it is that there is too little sense of struggle in the novel, no grand conflict being played out. Boyle's tendency is to diminish rather than emphasise human difference. As a result, the climax, when it comes, is disappointing. Some characters get lucky; others get unlucky. But it is not clear why this should be the case. If Boyle had a less clearly-defined view of human nature, Drop City might have been even better.