The story, in realistic detail, of one ordinary man's attempt to make something of his life, and the ultimately disastrous course his ambition takes him down. Highly memorable and highly sad. ( )

Continental Drift, like many of Banks' books, starts with his main character(s) somewhere in midlife and having been pretty much beaten down, usually by forces beyond their control.

In Continental Drift, Bob, a small town New Englander, does not know how to cope with the frustration of his life. His only outlet is a local bimbo he occasionally hits on in a bar.

The other character, a Haitian women named Vanise, is probably the more remarkable. Like Bob, she's been beaten down, but the obstacles she faces are not merely boredom and a lack of satisfaction; her obstacles threaten her physical and spiritual existence.

In the background is Bob's wife who seems simply to endure, but it soon becomes apparent that, while Bob flounders through his life, she is the one with strength.

The two begin their separate journeys to Florida, where they believe they realize salvation.

It doesn't happen. Though both show incredible resilience (she more than he), it seems that each time there looks to be a chance of rising above their respective lots, they get beaten down again.

There are points in the book where you wonder "how much more can he/she take?"

Then your read another chapter and say "jeez...they can take a lot more". ( )

Russell Banks really knows how to tell a good story. On the surface, it's about Bob Dubois and his downward spiral. Bob is a New Hampshire man who seems to have it all: a wife, two kids, a decent job, a house, a boat to take out on the weekends and even a girlfriend on the side. His problem: greed. He is a man who compares himself too often to the people around him: his brother, his best friend. He doesn't let go of grudges or jealousies all that easily. Feeling like the man who has nothing to lose, he gives up everything to move to Florida for a "fresh start." His tale is just the vessel for Banks to describe a society fueled by the overwhelming need for more and more. Excess is not enough. Bob soon learns the meaning of "good enough" when his life spins out of control. ( )

As [Cloudsplitter] ranks somewhere in my top 25 books and I thought [The Sweet Hereafter] was fairly decent as well, I really tried to like this book. It is the story of the Everyman "Bob" in his early 30s, who, disappointed with his prosaic life, uproots his family and tries to replant them in Florida. Bob sees Florida as a place of affluence and abundance - the men rich, the women exotic, the boats fast, and the scenery bursting with oleander and orange blossoms. But one mistake rapidly follows another, and Bob begins to drown in the cumulative weight of his failures. The story is told in parallel with that of a woman struggling to make the journey from Haiti to Florida. This portion should have made the book more interesting, but her story suffers from a surfeit of voodoo, which I found to be a major distraction. Every last man in [Continental Drift] is self-loathing, weak and a disappointment, and as a result, so was the novel. ( )

3891. Continental Drift, by Russell Banks (read 23 May 2004) This 1985 novel is a somber story, telling of a very ordinary guy in New Hampshire who pulls up stakes and moves with his family to Florida where he does one dumb thing after another. His story is intertwined with an account of Haitians who escape their dismal land. The central character does such exasperatingly stupid things, as I read I thought of other famous fictional tragedies, such as Dreiser's An American Tragedy (read 19 June 1950) and Madame Bovary (read 7 Sept 1968) but their characters seemed to be burdened by one big mistake. This book's central character never learned to avoid repeated stupidity. ( )