Austen passed on A Marker to Measure Drift to me after finishing it himself. This is usually a good sign; Austen is picky with his praise.
A Marker to Measure Drift follows Jacqueline, a refuge from Charles Taylor’s Liberia, wandering Santorini, Greece. Homeless in paradise, Jacqueline is a modern Robinson Crusoe, alone on an island populated by tourists and gyro stands. Jacqueline is saved by the kindness of strangers–a restaurant owner, a cafe waitress, a guide giving tours of a ruined city.
The novel unfolds slowly–we don’t know what she is fleeing, but the horror of her past haunts in remembered images: her sister’s orange cat, her mother in the kitchen slicing oranges, the sun dropping into the sea.
Maksik has created a finely crafted novel–part mystery, part lyrical narrative–it is a pleasure to read. Melancholy will linger, but the truth of the story is worth it:
And maybe that was the way to live. Always in fear of ruin.
Beauty as a form of respect. Of superstition.
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