Hegland's
powerfully imagined first novel
will make readers thankful for telephones and CD players while
it underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology.
The
tale is set in the near future: electricity has failed, mail
delivery has stopped and looting and violence have destroyed
civil order. In Northern California, 32 miles from the closest
town, two orphaned teenage sisters ration a dwindling supply
of tea bags and infested cornmeal. They remember their mother's
warnings about the nearby forest, but as the crisis deepens,
bears and wild pigs start to seem less dangerous than humans.
From
the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest
voice of the 17-year-old narrator pull the reader in, and
the fight for survival adds an urgent edge to her coming-of-age
story. Flashbacks smartly create a portrait of the lost family:
an iconoclastic father, artistic mother and two independent
daughters.
The
plot draws readers along at the same time that the details
and vivid writing encourage rereading. Eating a hot dog starts
with "the pillowy give of the bun," and the winter
rains are "great silver needles stitching the dull sky
to the sodden earth." If sometimes the lyricism goes
a little too far, this is still a truly admirable addition
to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell's
1984 and Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker.
From
Publishers Weekly
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