Drifting on the Edge

Set on the border of France, Germany, and Switzerland, this offbeat novel weaves stories within stories as a group of friends struggles to make sense of their lives across three different time periods: a trivial present, the darkness of World War II, and a "dystopian" future in which the Swiss city of Basel has been transformed into an ultramarine paradise, reconstructed on stilts in the Sea of Switzerland. Through the eyes of Richard, the Australian narrator, we follow the escapades of a Brazilian theoretical physicist, a former art professor who speaks pseudo-Shakespearean English, a Russian mystic, a Romanian wallflower, and a Colombian dope-head as they try to find purpose in the chaos of time and space. If one day literature has a new "Coming Undone" genre, this will surely be its groundbreaking work. Drifting on the Edge describes cross-generation friends staring into a strange future - and it looks remarkably like their past.