Cook's novel is a virtuoso exploration of humanity's relationship to nature. Set in a futuristic America where the entire population lives in a giant, polluted, smog-ridden city-state, the narrative focuses on Bea, a young mother hoping to save her sick child, Agnes. Along with 18 others, the pair volunteer to move into the Wilderness State--a vast western territory that has been closed to humans--as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Timely and expansive, Cook's fiction will change the way you see nature.
Part comedy and part Western, Johnson's novel unfolds in 1938 Reno, Nevada, on a dude ranch for wealthy women looking to get legally divorced. Emily and Nina are two such guests, and during one memorable summer they become inseparable from Ward, a young cowboy, whose perspective shapes the narrative. As he recounts the trio's various hijinks, adventures, and the passion that would alter their lives forever, the novel sparkles with brilliant, witty dialogue, romance, and plot twists.
