DRIFTERS

Strange doings in a run-down coastal Washington town include all the people who suddenly vanish and are quickly forgotten.

Emerson puts a science-fiction slant on the notion of how important it is to see others—and how devastating being or feeling unseen can be. Four months after her former best friend Micah’s disappearance, Jovie hasn’t forgotten her but has to repeatedly remind everyone else, including the school principal, that she ever existed. More shockingly, one day she sees through a spyglass a young stranger sitting in Micah’s empty desk in class, someone invisible to everyone but tangible enough to be unconsciously given space in the hallways. Hoping he’ll lead her to Micah, Jovie follows him to a group of other drifters awaiting one of the mysterious electrical storms that have been blasting in over the past century, opening a way to somewhere else. Flashing backward and forward in time while having his protagonist fret at length over how she had failed as a friend by not noticing that Micah was troubled, and shoehorning in sheaves of other mysteries ranging from black vans that appear in the wake of an accident at the nearby nuclear plant to a conveniently key bit of technology tied to a previous trilogy, the author runs up the page count without tying off loose ends or letting the pace of events get much beyond an easy amble. The cast is predominantly White.

A worthy theme but an overstuffed and ponderous story.