Driftwood Spars

Name: Driftwood Spars
Rating: 2.5 (5 reviews)

by P. C. Wren

First published 1916

Amazon

2.5(5)

A man, a boy and a woman move through separate but converging lives, joined by chance encounters, old injuries and relationships whose meaning becomes clear only gradually. Wren ranges from domestic and political satire to episodes of danger and emotional loss, treating the characters as pieces of driftwood brought together by the same current even when they believe themselves isolated.

Unlike his later Foreign Legion adventures, this is a broad social novel with an episodic structure. It contrasts public causes and respectable poses with private loyalties, and it allows comedy, romance and tragedy to coexist. The image of drifting spars gives the book its central idea: lives damaged or separated by circumstance may still form unexpected supports for one another.