“Serpell’s riveting prose urges me to believe that sometimes the true work of grief is to rupture us so thoroughly, we become capable of telling—and living—another story.”
—TRACY K. SMITH, author of Life on Mars
Cassandra is twelve; her little brother Wayne is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there’s an accident, and Wayne is lost forever. Though his body is never recovered, their mother can’t stop searching. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt: How do you grieve an absence? And how does it feel?
As C grows older, she relives and retells her story, and she sees her brother everywhere: in cafes, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother’s older face, the light in his eyes, his lanky limbs, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can’t be, of course. Or can it? And then one day, there’s another accident, and C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who’s also searching for someone, as well as his own place in the world. His name is Wayne.
The Furrows captures the ongoing and uncanny experience of grief, as the past breaks over the present, like waves in the sea. This bold exploration of memory and mourning twists unexpectedly into a masterful story of mistaken identity, slippery reality, black experience, and the wishful and sometimes willful longing for reunion with those we’ve lost.
Finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction. Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.
The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2022. The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2022. Time Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2022. The Washington Post’s 50 Best Fiction Books of 2022. Oprah Magazine’s Favorite Novels of 2022. The Guardian’s Best Fiction of 2022. New York Magazine’s Best Books of 2022. L.A. Times 5 Best Novels of 2022. Vox’s 16 Best Books of 2022. Kirkus’s 100 Best Fiction Books of 2022. BookPage’s Best Fiction of 2022.
Reviewed in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, L.A. Times, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, The Star Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, Readings, Alta, ★ Publishers Weekly, ★ Kirkus Reviews, Time, AV Club.
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BOOK CLUB KIT
Windham–Campbell Prize in Fiction. Anisfield–Wolf Book Award in Fiction. Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction. L.A. Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Finalist for the L.A. Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown.
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019. Time’ s 100 Must-Read Books; Kirkus Review’s Best Fiction;The Atlantic’s Best 15 Books; Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2019.
Reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ★ Publishers Weekly, ★ Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Observer, The Guardian, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Nylon Magazine
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“Extraordinary, ambitious, evocative…. A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage.” —SALMAN RUSHDIE, New York Times Book Review
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called the Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis.
In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles his fate with those of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This error sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between these three Zambian families, as they continually collide over the course of the century, into the present, and beyond.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to home grown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones, and viral vaccines – The Old Drift is a gripping, unforgettable debut novel.