The setting, theme, and characters of The Drifters recall Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises (1926; see separate entry), which Michener mentions in his own novel. Michener's intention in making this allusion is to compare the cynical, expatriated Lost Generation of Hemingway's post-World War I novel to the disaffected youth of the Vietnam War era. Michener's comparison between these two generations of social dropouts is most apparent when his own characters in The Drifters reenact the most famous scene in The Sun Also Rises, the running of the bulls through the streets of Pamplona, Spain, during the annual fiesta of San Fermin in July.