Unveiled

Do you see me?

I am cold …I am not an angel, nor am I demon … I am a Drifter, something God created in his spare time and then forgot on the fringes of reality …Do you see me?

Drift is the story of two lost souls. One is the adopted daughter of a Mafia enforcer kept more as pet than person. The other is a being so disconnected from time and substance he exists only to be tethered to someone, anyone, more real than he himself is. In some cruel form of control Baby Doll has never been told her real name, though she has begged for that connection to her past since a little girl. And on the day, as a young woman, Baby Doll attends the funeral of the man who held her virtual prisoner her entire life everything is changed by those four haunting words, “Do you see me?”

Baby Doll sees a young man whom she can only think to name, Boy. The story he tells her is as fantastic to her as it will be to the reader. Boy has no idea what he is or how long he has existed. His life gains substance only as he remains tethered to one person. Only the person who he becomes attached to can see him and there is no guarantee how long the connection will stay intact. To tell anymore more of the story would be an injustice to both the author and the reader.

At first glance, Drift is a fantasy or perhaps an allegory. Admittedly the concept may at first scare some readers off (it almost did me). But, give yourself half a chance and you will find yourself drawn into as intense a story of redemption as fiction can offer. Boy serves as a surreal picture of what it means to feel invisible as so many people in our culture do. Baby Doll is his alter ego: wealthy, well groomed, well educated, and just as much without substance. In the end, Drift is about discovering our reason for existence.

Baby Doll watched the city roll by outside her window and found herself humming. It was an old song, a church song that told a story about a man who found a pearl and then sold everything he had just to buy it. She couldn’t remember all the words, but she wondered if she was more like that man in the song, or more like the pearl. Part of her desperately hoped to be both.

For those who don’t know, the author, Sharon Carter Rogers, is as much an enigma as Boy and Baby Doll. Ever since her earlier novels, Sinner and Unpretty, first appeared readers have been trying to figure out who Sharon is but even the publisher offers little help. Whatever her true identity, she writes in prose that literally bleed with raw emotion. Sometimes it seems as though the writer herself is whispering along with Boy, “Do you see me?”

Reviewed by Tim George
Genre: Suspense/Fantasy
Publisher: Howard Books
Publication Date: April 2010
Advanced Readers Copy provided by Howard Books