Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I think that the students in our school library need to hear lots of diverse voices and read stories and lives of many different kinds of people and experiences. When I inherited the library it was an incredibly sanitised space with only 'school readers' and project books on 'the railways' etc. Buying in books that will appeal to the whole range of our readers with diverse voices, eclectic and fascinating subject matter, and topics that will intrigue and fascinate them was incredibly important to me.
This is a book that I think our senior readers will enjoy very much indeed - not just because it's well written with an arresting voice that will really keep them reading and about a fascinating topic - but it's also a book that doesn't feel worthy or improving, it doesn't scream 'school library and treats them like young reading adults who have the right to explore a range of modern diverse reads that will grip and intrigue them and ensure that reading isn't something that they are just forced to do for their English project - this was a solid ten out of ten for me and I'm hoping that our students are as gripped and caught up in it as I was. It was one that I stayed up far too late reading and one that I'll be recommending to the staff as well as our senior students - thank you so much for the chance to read and review; I really loved it and can't wait to discuss it wth some of our seniors once they've read it too!

Unfortunately I could not get into this book and did not finish it. Other readers may enjoy this more.

This book is a blend of fairytale, science fiction and mythology that I am not sure how to comprehend. The prose is brilliant and subversive and gives me everything I seek from magical realism. It talks about consequences of our actions, but also family and how decisions made decades before can influence how those around us perceive us.
I found myself reminded of David Mitchell in the way the novel was told - each chapter focusing on a different character to reveal all about how their lives intertwine with each other.
Whilst I did find myself confused at times and believe that some sections of the narrative were better than others, that didn't quell my overall enjoyment of the novel. Brilliant.

Although I finished reading this novel a while ago I have found it close to impossible to write a review that will do this most excellent novel justice in any way. This is a wild sprawling chaotic beautiful multigenerational, genre-busting (Serpell takes on historic, magic realist and science-fiction genres, to name a few) and interracial novel spanning a century in the history of Zambia – although the novel travels (and spills over), with a section of the novel set in Italy and another in the future. I have to admit, the novel did initially take me a little while to get into it but once I did, I was hooked and I have come to think of it as the most perfect novel I have ever read.

It is a deeply absorbing and all-encompassing read whose (many) characters are wonderfully bizarre, quirky and complicated. Serpell tackles a zillion themes and ideas in a clean, poetic, shiny prose (“Sunrays dove into the water and pulled twisted ropes of light out over the stones.”) – and with magic realism throbbing at its core, tragedy, humour, identity, politics, love all bubble up to the surface.

This beautifully knitted story is divided in three sections (The Grandmothers, The Mothers, The Children) with the story jumping back and forth chronologically within the story, tagging the different characters’ storylines (that then converge in spectacular ways) but always driving the narrative firmly forward, intermingled with sprinkles of real life characters and facts. Weaving its way throughout the novel, tying it together, commenting, taunting and explaining is the chorus provided by a swarm of mosquitoes (emphasising the novel’s key theme of blood – tainted blood, bloodlines and disease).

This novel will get under your skin! I envy anyone who has yet to read it!

The Old Drift is undoubtedly one of the best African novels, if not the best one, that I’ve read. While liking the majority of the African books I’d read before, I found them quite burdensome in regard to the topic of human misery, poverty and hardships, so I was not looking forward to reading The Old Drift all that much.

While the book does depict the very many hardships of the Zambian people, it is not at all a book aiming to just tell you about the tough lives that they lead. In fact, The Old Drift is one of the most multifaceted novels about any country that I’ve read. It goes like a fairytale of many generations and seemingly random people, until suddenly they all become entangled in one and the same story consisting of layer upon layer of history, tragedy, happiness, absurdity, power and weakness.

There was a huge number of characters and narrators in this book, and surely enough, I liked some and disliked others, but in general, I felt that all of them were vivid and alive to me, all of them had their personalities, struggles, good and bad sides. That was one of the things that really won me over – sometimes there are books with just 1-2 main characters and those still ring empty, whereas, in The Old Drift, there were just so many of them, and they all felt like real flesh and blood.

The book was the very face of magical realism, with casual absurd supernatural events occurring, not to the shock of any of the characters. It was perfectly acceptable for them there to be a woman who was fully covered in hair, even though some thought it grotesque, as was it realistic there to be a woman who never stops crying and whose eyelashes are stuck together from the salt of tears to the point where she can hardly see.

It was not only the characters that were full of life, however. The novel itself spanned for more than a hundred years and followed many intertwining generations of inhabitants of Zambia, from the first colonial settlements near Victoria Falls, through Edward Nkoloso’s Zambian space program, and finally, the near future and the sci-fi technology of the 2020s.

My only issue with this book was the very fact that there were so many characters. Sometimes it was hard to remember at which point I’d already met someone, in order to piece together their story with a later one they appeared in. Nevertheless, that can also be partially attributed to the fact that the book is almost 600 pages and I had neither the time, not the attention span to read it fast enough not to start forgetting bits and pieces.

This is one of those books I chose because it sounded different, a far cry from my usual fair of contemporary and crime fiction. And it was different, which – for me – was a good and a bad thing.
I’ll start with the good. For me, this was mainly at the beginning, probably the first third of the book. This is where the woman covered in hair comes in, as well as the woman who never stops crying. I really enjoyed their tales of love found and lost and the way it changed their lives and the lives of those around them.
You could have taken them and read them as short stories in and of themselves. The language painted a real picture of a world I know very little of and of characters I found fascinating. I was completely drawn in.
Then things got complicated. The language was the same, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes lyrical. The characters, though, were less compelling, less people I wanted to know. And the connections between them, while I understand the point of trying to pull everything together to get to the point of the story…it all felt so stretched I found it hard to suspend the disbelief I needed to, to enjoy the novel.
As a result, I found myself flagging. It was a struggle to get through some of the chapters and I found myself forgetting who was who and how they were connected. At 500+ pages, this is a long book but it felt longer. Because of this, I can’t recommend it…unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me!

This is certainly a remarkable novel, full of ideas and unusual characters, and it’s an ambitious if challenging read. It’s a multi-generational story that covers the years from 1904 to the near-future, via a multiplicity of voices, and ranges from Europe to colonized Northern Rhodesia to present-day Zambia. The various voices, characters and stories are interwoven to great effect but the sheer number of them sometimes makes the action hard to follow and keep track of. I didn’t have any trouble sticking with it and carrying on to the bitter end, but I can understand those readers who gave up. It needs a certain reading stamina, especially as I feel it was overlong, and although the characters were interesting I couldn’t relate to any of them and thus remained unengaged by their plight. But what a panoramic tale it is, as it meanders or perhaps “drifts” over time and place, covering many themes and issues along the way – politics, colonialism, empire and its legacy, racism, AIDS, drones – and hair. It begins as a fairly straight forward piece of historical fiction but soon swerves into magic realism and sci-fi, and I admit to sometimes getting lost. A kind of Greek chorus intervenes on occasion, adding another level to the complexity. Real life historical figures also come into the narrative, including Percy M Clark, whose memoir “The Autobiography of an Old Drifter” informed the author’s writing, plus an intriguing characters called Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, a schoolteacher, revolutionary and “Afronaut”, head of the absurd Zambian Space Programme. (Look it up, I think you will be as amazed as I was.) So an impressive book all round, albeit not without its faults, and an original and inventive exploration of Zambia’s past and present.

Serpell’s new novel ‘The Old Drift’ is a book that I found extremely difficult to connect with. The story behind the pretentious writing style is actually a pretty good premise but gets lost within the prose and styles the author choses to use.

The characters are well written and although the story is told in the first person, the narration does provide the village and the relationships rather well. The story unfolds and unveils itself to its own pace and timing. There are some difficulties that present itself and you often have to read between the lines to bring these nuances out.

The plot is well constructed though the style of writing would lend itself to a style that was more straight forward. It is beautifully written with each sentence reading like a line of poetry and prose but the plot tends to get lost. It almost is like a literary version of the magic eye pictures from the 90’s where you have to find the picture within the picture. I never could see the picture and this maybe more a problem of myself than with the style of writing that is on show here. The story is hidden behind the prose.

Serpell’s book will find its audience and people who love beautifully written passages told against a dark story. Personally, I tend to have difficulty with first person narratives because you have to really like the main character to get on with the story. I lacked a close relationship with the narrator which may have hindered my enjoyment. I appreciated the well constructed sentences and understand what the author was trying to achieve but unfortunately, it never really spoke to me.

As a novel for myself this would get two stars from me but as a literary achievement with writing styles this would get a hands down four stars so I will give this three stars which is a happy medium. My interest is peaked with this author and I will look out for future books.

I really wanted to like Old Drift but it was a book I didn’t finish.

I liked the sound of the book, but I found it very difficult to engage with. I have family who live in that area of the world so that was what influenced my decision to read it but in the end that wasn’t enough to keep me reading.

The style Old Drift was written in was very mismatched and did nothing to help my engagement with the book.

The few bits I read were beautifully worded, but I knew very quickly that I would not be continuing to read the book.

DNF @ 10%
The story unfortunately didn't hook me. Magical realism doesn't always go down well for me, and the story of the first woman is definitely pretty sad. Couldn't bring myself to go back to the book because of that.
(Won't be posting any rating to Goodreads - just a DNF review, but NetGalley requires you to rate.)

DNF @ 25%. The brief opening section of this book was a wonderful first-person piece of ventriloquism, as Namwali Serpell totally inhabits the mindset of a racist colonist man in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) at the turn of the twentieth centuryy. I was immediately convinced that Serpell is an exciting and versatile writer. However, I found the two long third-person sections that followed didn't live up to this promise; both felt so pedestrian. There was a nice touch of magical realism in the incessantly growing hair of our first narrator, Sibilla, but the second section, which focused on Agnes, a blind girl from England who marries a Rhodesian man just before the country wins its independence as Zambia, lost all the momentum the book had gathered. A shame - I hope Serpell goes on to write something more cohesive.

This a very meaty and complex read.
Be warned it won’t be for everybody
Thank you to both NetGalley and Random House for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

The Old Drift is an epic novel. Both in size and scope. It's not an easy read and is quite complicated in places but stick with it, as it's a very unique reading experience. A tale of three families and three threads running through it which interweave into an impressive tapestry.

The story begins in 1904 and takes the reader along like a river through time. It flows into the present day and beyond, into the future. On its way it picks up bits of various themes such as politics, the history of white British pioneers in Rhodesia and the ‘natives’, racism, empire and so much more

It's a marathon read so pace yourself from the start. Build up slowly and surely. Don't be tempted to run ahead. You'll get lost and miss out on the views along the way. It's set in some of the most fascinating and stunning landscape in the African continent for a start. Then there's the other runners in the race - the magical realism, the fantasy, sci fi even makes an appearance. An odd cast of characters but their shared rhythm jogs along nicely and provides  much refreshment and room for thought along the way.

 The Old Drift is an old settlement and it is on the banks of the Zambezi river. It's akin to a viewpoint of the world and the history around it. A vantage point and not just of the river and the mountains.

I have to say that for plot - it's like the river. Nothing linear and everything meandering to the pinpoint that at times I had no idea where things were going or where I'd been. There were traps too - sections of text in local dialect with no translation - which for me slowed things down and made me feel I was missing out.

It's almost experimental and it's unlike anything I've read before. Sometimes it has visions of grandeur it can't live up to, yet I was fascinated to see how it all played out. It's a vision of Zambia, of Africa, of the space race, political shifts, and most of all....people and their lives.

The Old Drift is, as I said before, a tapestry. Easy to get bogged down in the detail during its formation, but once you've finished, stand back and see the impressive full picture from a distance.

The book is full of juxtapositions. British colonialism vs African revolutionaries, 3rd world poverty vs high tech drones, beautiful powerful writing vs meaningless ramblings.

I really enjoyed some of the true historic events the author weaved into the story. I travelled to Zambia about 5 years ago and read up about its history but nowhere was it stated that Zambia had its own space program in the 1960’s. A revolutionary, Edward Nkolose headed up the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy.

The story itself is a multi-generational tale starting with 3 women, all so vastly different.

Silliba originates from Italy and was born with massive amount of hair. Hair that covers her whole body. No matter how many times she cuts it, the next day its back.

Agnes is a young English rose, an upcoming tennis star but when she slowly goes blind her dreams of glory fades with her.

Martha is the only native Zambian of the 3 women. During her time training to be an Afronaut with the Zambia space program she meets her sweetheart. When he leaves her pregnant and destitute, she starts crying, never to stop for many decades.

The story follows these 3 women, their daughters and grandchildren and how their lives run parallel, crosses over and finally collides.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of, all with African names that gets stuck in your throat when you try to pronounce it. There are also a lot of genres mashed into the tale. From historical fiction and sci fi to magical realism.

The tone has a playful seriousness to it and the boundaries the author pushes is admirable, but the experimental writing made the book hard work at times.

I don’t regret reading this book as it most definitely was a unique experience, but it is not something to go into lightly.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, Hogarth and the author, Namwali Serpell, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of The Old Drift in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.
I have been a bit slow in writin this review regarding this debut novel. I actually read this story a week ago, and found it difficult to put into words what I thought about it..
I was captivated. It was a well written story spanning three generations. I thought it was an incredible read.
well worth a read.

Found this book rather challenging
Loved the vibrancy of the cover
Afraid this book was not for me
Thank to netgalley for an early in return for an honest review

This begins in 1904, telling the tale of white British pioneers in Rhodesia and the ‘natives’. Initially there’s a lot of hunting and the use of the ‘N’ word seemed to be thrown in to show how awful the English were with their colonial imperialism.

However, it then settles into the intriguing tales of families of different backgrounds but all linked in some way to early Rhodesia. It covers generations through loves, marriages, heartbreak with tales of politics in Africa and the birth of a new nation, some faintly weird tales of a Zambian space race of putting a man in space, a young woman covered in rapidly growing hair with a seemingly life of its own and later science fiction.

It can be a little hard to follow at times but it is a well written epic, poetic tale of the personal lives of the characters and the sheer complications of human life and its interactions. I can see this being a favourite of book clubs and is sure to be a modern classic.

I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

I really enjoyed this! The sheer complexity of this book and the layers to be unpacked make for a truly wonderful read. The cover is beautiful too, which is what initially caught my eye! It took some time to get through this book, due to its size, but it was worth every minute!

The Old Drift is an epic novel spanning genres and generations that tells the story of three families in Zambia and how their lives interact along with politics, science, and colonialism. It begins in 1904 and moves across the twentieth century and into the future, with a mysterious swarm chorus that floods into the gap between each part.

At first, the novel seems to be the kind of book that entwines the narratives of characters across generations, showing human error, life, and passion. However, it becomes apparent that The Old Drift is more epic than this as it darts through fairy tale, science fiction, and political narrative, all tied by the personal ups and downs of the characters and the Zambian setting. The book is long but keeps changing, revealing connections between characters and hidden gaps as well as these genre shifts. The characters it brings together at the end—Joseph, Jacob, and Naila—are shown to have come from the complicated lives of their parents and grandparents, which gives their technological narrative (which could easily be a novel on its own) a richer history.

The Old Drift is an exciting, epic novel that plays around with genre and character, but keeping a central core of human life and the passing of time. It is one to watch out for.