A story of idealism, activism, and systemic corruption, centered on a naïve young woman’s quest for agency in a world ravaged by climate change. Willa Marks has spent her whole life choosing hope. She chooses hope over her parents’ paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels she’s found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black: the only person smart and sharp enough to compel the world to action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever. And then she finds a book in Sylvia’s library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The group’s leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the compound’s public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope’s mission—but at what cost? A VINTAGE ORIGINAL
Author
Allegra Hyde is the author of the story collection THE LAST CATASTROPHE, which was named an Editors’ Choice by The New York Times. Her debut novel ELEUTHERIA was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker and shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize. Her first story collection, OF THIS NEW WORLD, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. A recipient of four Pushcart Prizes, Hyde's writing has also been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Her stories, essays, and humor pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, American Short Fiction, BOMB, and many other venues. For more about Allegra, visit www.allegrahyde.com Or check out her blog, The Simile Museum
