Adrift

Set in a fictional canal town in the Illinois-Indiana-Kentucky tristate area, the novel opens with a prologue dated fall 1973. Andrew Jenkins, age 15, locks his sleeping parents inside their bedroom, douses the hallway with gasoline, and ignites a tennis ball with his father's lighter. He walks downstairs, listens to their muffled screams until they stop, then goes outside to watch the house burn. Investigators blame faulty wiring. Andrew is never charged.

Twenty-one years later, in fall 1994, the narrative alternates between the perspectives of Peggy Jenkins and her 14-year-old son, Samson. They live with Peggy's husband, Drew (the adult Andrew), on the Lady Brett Ashley, a 50-foot narrow boat moored on a rural canal. The family purchased the boat with money from selling the bungalow Peggy inherited from her mother, Ruth, who died by suicide, though Drew insists the boat was paid for through his labor at the scrapyard. Peggy has no birth certificate, no access to the family bank account, and no paying job; Drew forbids her from working, citing her "nerves."

Drew controls every aspect of domestic life. He interrogates Peggy about anyone she speaks with, demands silence from nine o'clock onward for his writing sessions, and frames all household rules around his literary ambitions and his single achievement: the Hugh Higgins Memorial Prize for Most Promising Writer. When Peggy speaks briefly with a neighbor, Drew moves the boat to an isolated stretch of canal, cutting the family off from public water, electricity, and the bus route.

Peggy recalls that when she was eight months pregnant, Drew confessed to killing his parents. Over the years he has alternately claimed the story was fiction, a nightmare, or something she imagined. She no longer knows what to believe but understands the implicit threat keeps her tethered to him. Drew described their family as "a flawless triangle," making clear through "the intonation of his voice" and "the look in his eye" that if one side broke away, the triangle would collapse (76).

Samson attends high school on a scholarship, where classmates mock his thin arms, red hair, and poverty. His only refuge is his after-school job helping Mr. Turner, an elderly widower who pays him 10 dollars a week for errands and provides warmth Samson never receives at home. When Mr. Turner moors his houseboat, Skylark, behind the Jenkins' boat, Drew is furious. One evening Drew takes a bottle of bourbon to Mr. Turner. The next morning, Samson finds Mr. Turner floating dead in the canal. The coroner rules it death by misadventure. Peggy notes the timing but keeps her suspicions to herself. Samson adopts Mr. Turner's Jack Russell terrier, Amber.

Drew systematically gaslights Peggy. Her jewelry and personal items vanish; he blames her faulty memory. He pressures her to tell a detective they were intimate the night Mr. Turner died, fabricating a false alibi. When arguments escalate, Samson cuts himself in the bathroom to divert Drew's aggression away from Peggy.

Peggy secretly writes a novel during lunch breaks at the library. A small New York publisher requests the full manuscript; unable to afford postage, Peggy pawns her mother's gold necklace. She receives a publishing offer and announces it at dinner. Drew dismisses the deal as insignificant.

Shortly after, Peggy is found unconscious in the bathtub, the water red and an empty pill bottle nearby. She is transferred to St. Mary's Psychiatric Hospital and involuntarily committed. Peggy insists she did not take pills and would never abandon Samson, but the staff diagnose her with borderline personality disorder and medicate her heavily. Drew tells Samson they cannot visit. Peggy writes 13 letters to Samson, mailing them to Drew's workplace; Drew never delivers them.

Alone with Drew for months, Samson endures a stripped-down existence. He visits the hospital repeatedly but is turned away without an adult. On Christmas Day, he walks there alone and leaves his saved Milky Way. At school, someone places two razor blades and a note in his pencil case: "Your mom screwed it up. Make sure you do it properly" (203). A classmate named Paul Pricklett befriends him during this period, offering rare solidarity.

Inside St. Mary's, Peggy befriends a cleaner named Mary-Elizabeth who describes her own controlling partner, one who "beat on me every day with his words" (185). This triggers recognition about Drew's behavior. Peggy is denied Christmas leave, attempts to escape, and is restrained and sedated.

Meanwhile, Drew begins training Samson physically and takes him to work Saturdays at a construction site. Over pizza on a hilltop, Drew reveals he was bullied in school and tells Samson his bullies are jealous because Samson has "talent" and "dreams" (213). Samson begins adopting his father's mannerisms, including shaving his head.

Phoenix (real name Graham), Mr. Turner's cousin's son, moves onto Skylark. Gaunt and openly gay, Phoenix is terminally ill. Despite Drew's hostility, Phoenix becomes important to Samson, covering for him and speaking openly about sexuality and self-acceptance.

When Peggy is discharged, Drew reveals he impersonated her while she was hospitalized and antagonized the publisher until they terminated her contract. Her plan to use the advance to fund an escape collapses. Drew continues blocking her autonomy, calling a library to cancel a job interview by pretending to be her brother. Searching the boat, Peggy finds every piece of stolen jewelry hidden in a tobacco tin. She discovers that Drew's bureau drawers open with death dates, including those of his parents and Ruth. Inside one drawer she finds a handwritten document she reads as a eulogy for "Margaret," describing a wife who made a "choice" to leave behind a child, suggesting Drew planned to kill Peggy and stage it as suicide. Drew claims the document reads "Epilogue" and insists it is fiction.

Peggy tells Drew she and Samson are leaving, but Samson resists. School has improved, he has a girlfriend named Jennifer Adamu, and Drew has instructed him to watch for signs of Peggy's relapse. Drew asks Peggy for one more day, and she agrees.

The next evening, Drew places Ruth's gold necklace around Peggy's neck, then loops his leather belt around her throat, hanging her from the steel door. He reveals that Ruth did not die by suicide: He killed her. Samson arrives home early, finds Peggy hanging, grabs the Hugh Higgins Memorial Prize trophy, and drives it into Drew's head.

Phoenix arrives moments later. Terminally ill with weeks to live, he insists on taking responsibility. He wipes Samson's fingerprints from the trophy, replaces them with his own, and tells them, "This isn't yours to pay for" (324). Phoenix dies approximately a month later.

The novel closes with two epilogues offering contrasting possibilities. In the first, Peggy narrates from years later. She lives with Dennis Davenport—Samson's former head of Lower School and now her romantic partner—in a bungalow, holds a paid library position, and has published two novels. She wears a bracelet made from Ruth's necklace, unable to wear anything around her neck. She describes Samson's difficult recovery and her forgiveness after he confessed to hiding her jewelry, fearing she would flee and be recommitted. She walks toward the churchyard graveyard, the narrative implying Samson has since died. In the second epilogue, Samson stands at the train station wearing Phoenix's leather jacket, holding a one-way ticket to college in New York. Peggy and Dennis see him off with a Milky Way wrapped in a 50-dollar bill. Both wear matching gold bracelets. The train pulls away, and Samson reflects, "This town will always be my home, but it never will again" (334).