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Drive-by Saviours

by Chris Benjamin (Goodreads Author)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 39 ratings · 13 reviews

Demoralized by his job and dissatisfied with his life, Mark punches the clock with increasing indifference. He wanted to help people; he’d always believed that as social worker he would be able to make a difference in people’s lives. But after six years of bureaucracy and pushing paper Mark has lost hope.
All that changes when he meets Bumi, an Indonesian restaurant worker...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published September 30th 2010 by Fernwood Publishing Co Ltd

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Apr 27, 2011 Alison DeLory rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of my favourite things about living in Halifax, N.S. is that the writing community is a manageable size and in my experience, overwhelmingly supportive. I do my bit by occasionally reading a book by a local author and that was my main motivation behind purchasing Drive-by Saviours by fellow Haligonian Chris Benjamin. I'd also been following Chris on Twitter (@benjaminwrites) and while we've never met, we've had brief on-line conversations that led me to expect he would be a thoughtful and ar...more One of my favourite things about living in Halifax, N.S. is that the writing community is a manageable size and in my experience, overwhelmingly supportive. I do my bit by occasionally reading a book by a local author and that was my main motivation behind purchasing Drive-by Saviours by fellow Haligonian Chris Benjamin. I'd also been following Chris on Twitter (@benjaminwrites) and while we've never met, we've had brief on-line conversations that led me to expect he would be a thoughtful and articulate writer. He is, and so much more.

Drive-by Saviours is the type of debut novel I'd like to write–ambitious, impactful and sweeping. It boldly creates characters that are flawed yet sympathetic, and a plot that is unpredictable, tragic and hopeful. Rarely does a book feature strong characters and plot, one usually coming at the expense of the other, but this book has them both in equal doses.

One of the two main characters, Bumi, grows up in Rilaka, a small Indonesian fishing island. As part of Suharto's educational reforms, Bumi is forced from his home into a city school where he is expected to forget his peasant upbringing and accept a highly censored curriculum without question. Bumi is incredibly bright and rebellious, traits that prohibit his immersion into this new culture and continually land him in trouble.

The other main character, Mark, is a young social worker living in Toronto during the 2003 blackout that left city without power for several days during an August heat wave. The blackout profoundly affects how Mark sees and relates to his fellow citizens. As I, too, lived in Toronto at that time, I found the descriptions of how people interacted during the blackout totally accurate and insightful. Chris's writing about it and his observations about multicultural Toronto in general are so astute I felt (and rather wished) I'd written them myself.

I struggled initially with Bumi's storyline and was confused by some of the Indonesian names and political events of the time. In the early chapters I yearned to stay with Mark's story. It focused on the paralyzing stasis of his relationship with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his work. The further I got into the book, however, the more I yearned to read about Bumi. His struggles were with demons real and imagined, while Mark's were more with a lurking discontentment that seemed self-indulgent when contrasted with Bumi's problems. It took a long time for these two characters to meet but as expected, they had profound influence upon one another once they did and for me, that's when the book became exciting.

While the second half felt more rushed than the first, overall the writing is well paced in that it moved the story forward but paused when necessary to paint a picture or evoke a feeling. The tale is sad but it's a beautiful melancholy. The author ambitiously weaved many important social issues into the story and managed to present them in sufficiently informed and respectful ways.

Drive-by Saviours proved to me yet again that when you buy local and read local, you discover some of the best writers live close to your home.(less)

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Nov 30, 2010 Jennifer D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, books-i-own, canadian

Hmm, pondering on this one for a bit. I would give this novel 3 1/2 stars, if that was possible on GR.

From the cover description:

Demoralized by his job and dissatisfied with his life, Mark punches the clock with increasing indifference. He wanted to help people; he’d always believed that as social worker he would be able to make a difference in people’s lives. But after six years of bureaucracy and pushing paper Mark has lost hope.
All that changes when he meets Bumi, an Indonesian restaurant wor...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bumi lives in Indonesia. Mark lives in Canada. Bumi makes belts for a living. Mark is a social worker. The one thing they seem to have in common is a turbulent upbringing and uncomfortable relations with their families early in life. Their worlds seem far removed from each other, but they end up inextricably linked.[return][return]I came by this book entirely by chance, and the first time I tried to read it, it didn�t stick at all. I struggled through the first fifty pages in December, and then...more Bumi lives in Indonesia. Mark lives in Canada. Bumi makes belts for a living. Mark is a social worker. The one thing they seem to have in common is a turbulent upbringing and uncomfortable relations with their families early in life. Their worlds seem far removed from each other, but they end up inextricably linked.[return][return]I came by this book entirely by chance, and the first time I tried to read it, it didn�t stick at all. I struggled through the first fifty pages in December, and then just gave up. It didn�t gel well with my situation at the time, as a holidaymaker on a sunny windswept island in the Atlantic, and so I decided it certainly isn�t a light holiday read. Having now reached the end, I�m not completely sure that it is my kind of book at all. [return][return]The characters are a funny bunch. The Canadians mainly annoyed me; Mark is entirely defined by his job and seems to be quite flat beyond that, despite being the only character who is written in the first person, and his girlfriend Sarah is portrayed as, shock horror, both beautiful and intelligent � how can this be?! Towards the end, I thought Sarah turned into a clich�d neurotic female figure and I think that cemented my annoyance at the whole Toronto section. At the start, I found the Indonesian sections somewhat impenetrable � there is a lot of unnecessary wittering about Bumi�s childhood that, although interesting and well-written, is just too long � but once Bumi hit adulthood, he became the most interesting figure in the book, and stayed that way throughout.[return][return]This is an excellent example of a book with two alternating foci; to begin with, the two worlds of Mark and Bumi seem so far removed from each other that I wondered how Chris Benjamin would ever convincingly bring them together, but the shift onto a collision course is deliciously instantaneous. This is probably the one feature of the book that I will remember long after the wanderlust and the intermittent boredom and frustration have long been forgotten. [return][return]So, is this a positive review, or a negative one? I�m still undecided. I ploughed through the second reading in a couple of days but I held on until the end out of a sense of obligation because I knew I had to review it for the ER programme, rather than out of any genuine interest. I was rewarded, to some extent, for my perseverance, but I think it will end up in the charity shop before long.(less)

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Jan 29, 2011 DubaiReader rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: lter, 2011

Indonesia, Canada and OCD.

This was a book with an interesting premise but almost too much content. I got a bit bogged down with the details and it has taken me over a week to read it.
I liked the characters - Mark, buried under bureaucracy in a Toronto psychiatric hospital and Bumi, an Indonesian boy who grows to manhood amongst poverty and deprivation on an isolated island and then a mainland Indonesian city.
After a huge amount of struggle and hardship, Bumi meets Mark in Toronto and events beco...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Zoë Roy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Drive-by Saviours by Chris Benjamin is a great read. It has two storylines beginning in a small island of Indonesia and a large city of Canada. Bumi, born to a fisherman's family, developed an obsessive compulsive disorder without knowing it. As a murder suspect, he fled to Canada, leaving his wife and children behind. Mark, a social worker in Toronto, lived with his girlfriend and helped with refugee claimants. "Toronto," meaning "meeting place" in Ojibwa, is where Mark encountered Bumi during...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Pooker rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadiana, canada-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 26, 2010 Helen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: review-copies

Drive-By Saviours, the debut novel by Canadian author Chris Benjamin, tells the story of two men from very different backgrounds who meet one day on the subway in Toronto and form a friendship that changes both of their lives forever. One of these men is Bumi, an illegal immigrant from Indonesia, on the run from his troubled past. The other is Mark, a Canadian social worker who is growing increasingly disillusioned with his job. As they get to know each other, Mark learns that Bumi is suffering...more Drive-By Saviours, the debut novel by Canadian author Chris Benjamin, tells the story of two men from very different backgrounds who meet one day on the subway in Toronto and form a friendship that changes both of their lives forever. One of these men is Bumi, an illegal immigrant from Indonesia, on the run from his troubled past. The other is Mark, a Canadian social worker who is growing increasingly disillusioned with his job. As they get to know each other, Mark learns that Bumi is suffering from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and decides to try to help him get the treatment he needs – and at the same time discovers that this new friendship could have important consequences for his own future.

The novel moves back and forth between Indonesia and Canada, with alternating chapters being told from first Bumi's perspective, then Mark's. Bumi's chapters are in chronological order, whereas Mark's are in the form of flashbacks and anecdotes. This might sound like a confusing structure, but the author handles the transitions very well and the story flows nicely.

This wasn't a bad book by any means, but overall it didn’t quite work for me. Although I enjoyed the first half of the book, there were a few occasions during the second half where I started to lose interest in the story. And while I thought Bumi was a fascinating and sympathetic character, I felt less engaged with the chapters narrated by Mark. Maybe I just wasn’t the right reader for this book as most other reviews seem to be very positive.

However, there were some things I really liked about this book. First of all, I enjoyed the chapters set in Indonesia which described Bumi's childhood on a small fishing island and the difficulties he experienced when he was sent to school in the city of Makassar as part of a government experiment. I know very little about Indonesia so it was nice to have the opportunity to learn something about the history, politics and culture of the country. I also found the portrayal of Bumi's OCD very interesting to read about. The author spent a lot of time describing how Bumi's obsessions originated and spiralled out of control, what the symptoms were, and how people reacted to his behaviour in a community where most people were uneducated and had a limited understanding of mental illness.

A lot of other interesting issues are touched on, including families being separated by immigration, the effects of tourism and progress on an island community, and life in Indonesia under President Suharto's regime. But at the centre of the novel is the idea that two people who have grown up thousands of miles apart can discover a number of parallels in their lives and form a bond that transcends their cultural and personal differences. (less)

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Jan 09, 2011 Corey rated it 4 of 5 stars

It doesn't take a genius to see that these two men will cross paths, and it's a tribute to Benjamin's talent as a writer that the trek to that point is almost sheer pleasure. Perhaps by necessity, Bumi's tale is far more interesting, and Benjamin pulls off the neat trick of taking a potentially dark tale and never succumbing to despair. Bumi's life is harsh, but the bleakness never overwhelms either Bumi or the reader. Mark's life, likely more familiar to the average North American reader, is mo...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Suzan Michet rated it 4 of 5 stars

An excellent first-time novel by Chris Benjamin. I loved the flipping between a life in Toronto (very familiar) and a life in Indonesia (totally foreign). I also appreciated reading for the first time in fiction the 2003 power outage that covered southern ontario, helped me look at it from a different perspective than my own. Looking forward to this author's second book.

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Jun 07, 2012 Scott Fotheringham rated it 4 of 5 stars

Chris is a friend and we were in a writing group in Halifax together. Reading the novel written by someone you know can be a daunting experience - what if you don't like it? Fortunately, I did like Drive-by Saviours, from the title and beautiful cover, through the characterization, and onto the plot. Being taken to a locale and society that is unknown to me is one of the pleasures of reading. This novel gets the reader into the landscape and social fabric of the protagonist, and into his heart,...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · (Review from the author)

Shelves: favourites

Don't take my word for it. Drive-by Saviours was just longlisted for a ReLit Award (“The country’s pre-eminent literary prize recognizing independent presses,” according to the Globe and Mail). And check out these reviews:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/a...

http://saltyink.com/2010/12/07/salty-...

http://stephenclare.blogspot.com/2010...

http://shelf-monkey.blogspot.com/2011...

http://www.atlanticpublishers.ca/book...

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Jun 03, 2011 Jeff Bursey rated it 3 of 5 stars

More 3 and a half stars, really, for its focus on commerce, social injustice, immigration and oppression. Nice to see someone writing about ideas and concepts more than just creating characters and putting them in situations where these topics arise. That can sometimes come off false. If Chris Benjamin's characters are the weak point, the major concerns, which aren't going to go away soon, are the strong points. Recommended for those looking for engagement with international matters.

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May 09, 2012 MrsPL rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-books, canadian, fiction-general, gibc

There are so many different themes and ideas in this book, from migration to mental illness to development, and although that makes it interesting, it also makes the content a bit overwhelming. I really liked the character of Bumi, but found the character of Mark unsympathetic and somewhat annoying. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but didn't love it.

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About Chris Benjamin

Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist, fiction writer, CBC News web writer/editor and a columnist for The Coast.

He is the author of Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada (winner of the 2012 APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award) and the critically-acclaimed novel, Drive-by Saviours (which was longlisted for a 2011 ReLit Award and Canada Reads 2011). He has also had several short...more

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