Drift by Caryl Lewis — an ode to Wales #Dewithon24

Caryl Lewis’s background as a poet and scriptwriter is evident in Drift, the first novel she’s written in her second language of English.

This book has a lyrical quality that’s used to great effect when Lewis describes the wild landscape of the Welsh coast. The brooding nature of the sea, a power just waiting to be unleashed, perfectly complements the quasi-mythical elements of the narrative.

Added to this is some deft characterisation and very natural-sounding dialogue (no doubt honed from Lewis’s work on award-winning TV dramas). The result is a haunting, mesmerising tale of lost identities, love and the longing for home.

Drift tells the story of multiple characters who are struggling to keep a fragile hold on life, At the centre is Nefyn, a young woman who lives alone in a small shack by the sea. She’s a restless soul, drawn inexorably to the sea, spending her days gathering shells and treasures thrown up by the tides. One morning after a storm she finds a man’s body washed up by the tide.

…waves rippled guiltily this morning, their energy lost, the breeze gentle and even. Apologetic. Contrite.

As she nurses Hamza back to life, Nefyn learns about his past as a map maker in Syria;, the wife who was killed by a stray bullet and their child who went missing. And how he’s spent the last seven years as a prisoner suspected of being a terrorist. He ended up in the sea after a freak accident while being transported from a nearby British army base where he was physically and mentally abused.

They fall in love, each providing the other with a way to heal the past and reconnect with the world. As Hamza regains his physical strength, Enfys becomes more confident, less withdrawn.

“hey used to think that each star had its own sphere, that each one circled the earth untouched and untouching… But stars, they collide, they move, are never fixed… Making them appear so makes us feel better, but they stray into each others’ paths, feel the pull of others, and that’s the wonder of it.

The romance element is made all the more powerful because there is little chance of an ending where they live happily ever after together in Wales. As deeply as Hamza is drawn to Nefyn, his yearning to return home is even stronger. He desperately wants to find his son and his extended family who were separated by war. it takes Nefyn’s strange affinity with the sea — especially her ability to conjure up a storm at will — to help him evade re-capture and begin his journey home.

I’m not generally a fan of magic realism and mystical elements in fiction but in Drift, they are revealed so softly and elegantly that I was hooked. Nefyn is a bit of a mystery at first, characterised with subtle hints about a form of mental illness that might explain why she leads a strange and solitary life in a dilapidated clifftop cottage . Caryl Lewis cleverly holds back the fact that this woman, like her dead mother, has special powers that can be dangerous if misused.

There are so many strands to this novel it’s hard to choose which I enjoyed most: the tenderness of the Nefyn/Hamza relationship or the characters who experience something bigger themselves. Nefyn of course is a wonderful creation but I also have a soft spot for her friend Enfys who is slowly losing her husband to dementia.

Drift is an ode to the language and myths of Wales but Lewis also brings in elements of other cultures including Syria. The title of each chapter is in three languages – Welsh, Arabic, English – the order of them depending on the focal point of the chapter. “Cantre’r Gwaelod, Drowned City, Medina Maghmura …..Hikma, Wisdom, Doethineb … Cyfaill, Friend, Sadiq … Needle, Nodwydd, ‘iibra.” It’s a delightful touch, just one of many delights in this novel.