The Wildlands: A Novel - Tapa dura

Praise for The Wildlands

1 of 10 Books to Read in September (BBC Culture)
1 of 15 Books of September 2018 We Can't Wait to Read (Refinery29)
1 of 13 Best New Fiction Books Coming Out in September (Bustle)
1 of 15 Upcoming Releases From Our Favorite Small Presses (Book Riot)
1 of 34 Fall 2018 Books We Can't Wait to Read (HuffPost)
1 of 18 New Books We Think You'll Wanna Backpack This Summer (Paperback Paris)
1 of 14 New Books You Need to Know This Week (Bustle)
1 of 75 Spectacular New Books You Need to Read This Fall (Book Riot)
1 of 115 New Movies, TV shows, Albums, and Books to Check Out in September (Fast Company)
A Most Anticipated in the Second Half of 2018 (The Millions)
One of the Best Fall Books of 2018 (Buzzfeed)

"[An] impressive second novel . . . Geni's genius is that she makes us empathise with every member of this troubled family, and also with the animals Tucker yearns to protect." --BBC Culture, 1 of 10 Books to Read in September

"Abby Geni's haunting literary thriller, The Wildlands, explores humans' relationships with nature and what drives a person to fanaticism." --Real Simple

"Unforgiving landscapes, untamed nature and animal instincts remain propulsive themes for Chicago-based author Abby Geni. In her latest literary thriller, The Wildlands, she tells the harrowing story of the McClouds, an Oklahoma family that loses everything in a Category 5 tornado, after which two of the orphaned siblings go rogue and commit acts of violence." --Chicago Tribune

"Get ready to turn some pages with this new novel from the author of The Lightkeepers." --Bustle, 1 of 13 Best New Fiction Books Coming Out in September

"A hypnotizing page-turner." --Hello Giggles

"Fast-paced and gripping to the last page, The Wildlands is a fascinating look at the tension between activism and fanaticism and between the human and animal worlds." --PureWow

"It is a moving exploration of humanity: not only the danger of our belief in our supremacy and our power to control our environment, but also the unique power of our love for each other." --BuzzFeed, One of the Best Fall Books of 2018

"With skillful prose, you'll sympathize with Cora, a girl who must learn how to differentiate between love and family." --Women.com, 1 of 15 Awesome Books with Strong Female Protagonists

"Geni's sophomore novel, like her first, is a moody, pulse-pounding literary thriller." --HuffPost, 1 of 34 Fall 2018 Books We Can't Wait to Read

"Abby Geni's The Wildlands begins when a category five tornado hits the small town of Mercy, Oklahoma. The plot only accelerates from there. The book swept me into the disjointed psychology of a child convinced to perpetrate acts of eco-terrorism, a culture in which ideology is taken to the extreme. Real urgency animates these pages, as Geni tackles head on the devastating effects of climate change and the realities of living in the anthropocene. Her characters are vibrant and emotionally raw as they navigate a world that is disappearing, its future uncertain for both human and animals alike." --Tin House

"A tornado, family drama and eco-terrorism in Abby Geni's new thriller The Wildlands suck you in from the novel's devastating opening until you are deposited in an entirely different mental place at the end. Geni is a masterful storyteller." --Newcity Lit

"Geni . . . challeng[es] readers to consider more deeply how our actions affect those around us . . . Geni also offers a less passive vision of nature: Coyotes are 'shy and clever'; horses run with 'intensity and purpose'; animals consider their surroundings, communicate, make choices. In zoos, they lose their minds. Such a vision of nature, dismissed by most scientists until Jane Goodall, has primarily been the province of children's stories and myth. The Wildlands borrows from both: an existential battle for the future of life, seen through the eyes of a child. In an age of mass extinction, Geni suggests, we need new narratives to grapple with a crisis that can sometimes feel too big to wrap our heads around . . . A humble respect for the vulnerable, a resolve to fight for all life--and a commitment to love and support one another, through fire and storm." --In These Times

"Geni's (The Lightkeepers, 2016) fascination with the borders between human and animal drives this distinctive sophomore novel . . . Geni continues to create works of art with perfect voices that are simultaneously thrillers and meditations on nature. It is an incredible trick." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[An] acute and affecting follow-up to Geni's award-winning debut novel, The Lightkeepers . . . Throughout, Geni enfolds multiple themes: how the well-intentioned can go horribly wrong, how childhood experiences shape us, and what family love really means and how it can vie with principle. Revealing its secrets gradually and dealing gracefully with tough issues, Geni's work will satisfy a wide range of fiction readers." --Library Journal (starred review)

"Geni extends her signature and deeply unnerving exploration of the permeable line between wildness and civilization in this teeth-gritting tale of a young man broken by grief and rage and a trusting child turned fugitive, a girl disguised as a boy whose identity is scrambled and life endangered . . . Geni's masterfully precise and harrowing depictions of emotional and physical suffering culminate in a surreal and catastrophic showdown involving a California zoo. In this staggering tale of loss intimate and ecological, Geni joins T. C. Boyle, Barbara Kingsolver, Annie Proulx, and Hannah Tinti in portraying humankind as both the planet's most dangerous predator and one of myriad species vulnerable to ecodisasters of our own unintended devising. Riveting, provocative, and unforgettable." --Booklist (starred review)

"Disasters both natural and personal are at the heart of Geni's bold and adventurous latest . . . The novel is particularly notable for its interrogations of human relationships with the natural world, in keeping with Geni's previous works. This is a fast-paced, high-stakes novel that will keep the reader turning the pages." --Publishers Weekly

"Geni . . . is an astonishing storyteller who brings the sub-baked plains of Ohio to life on every page. The narrative toggles seamlessly between Darlene, a girl forced to grow up overnight, and Cora, a girl torn between her adulation for her long-absent older brother and her increasing awareness of his danger to her. The Wildlands is perfectly of its time, when humans are more alert than ever to our impact on the world around us." --BookPage

"In exquisite prose, Geni renders the ecstasy and anguish of familial love, and the ways it can lead us to the edges of who we imagine ourselves to be. A savage, glittering novel." --Megan Kruse, author of Call Me Home

"Every scene of this cleverly plotted novel is drawn with complex prose, rich detail, and an authorial voice that wisely observes the human animal. Abby Geni is my new favorite writer." --Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters

"Fast-paced and breathtaking, The Wildlands will transfix you from its opening natural disaster to its shocking and violent climax. In Abby Geni's hands, even a haircut becomes suspenseful. This book grabs you and won't let go." --David James Poissant, author of The Heaven of Animals

"In a novel with a locomotive plot and an urgent political timeliness, it's a true testament to Abby Geni's authorial prowess and big heart that the most memorable thing about this book is the love and determination of a family beset by tragedy. You'll be a better, wiser person after you read this book. You'll also be thrilled, from first page to last." --Peter Geye, author of Wintering

"Engrossing and so smart and introspective. Somehow Abby Geni does it all. Her language is gorgeous, and the relationships she builds between the McCloud siblings and how they relate to the world felt so real. I just fell into the story and couldn't put down this tense and heartbreaking novel." --Catherine Bock, Parnassus Books (Nashville, TN)

Praise for The Lightkeepers

Winner of the 2016 B&N Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize
Winner of the 2016 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction
AudioFile Earphones Award

"1 of 10 titles to pick up now." --O, The Oprah Magazine

"Not to be missed." --Entertainment Weekly

"Great new fiction." --People Magazine, 1 of 12 Best New Books for January

"Abby Geni's sense of place in her magnificent novel The Lightkeepers reminded us of Eowyn Ivey's Alaska in The Snow Child; Geni's prose reminded us of last year's Discover Award winner (fiction), All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld." --Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Spring 2016

"It's become customary--the fallback consolation of the book reviewer--to say that one is eager to see what a writer will do next. But in fact that is the case here. Ultimately, what engages us in The Lightkeepers, beyond its energetic plot, is the sense of watching its author discover her ability to construct a suspenseful narrative. And we finish this novel curious to find out what sorts of stories Abby Geni will choose to tell." --Francine Prose for the New York Times Book Review

"A book that never loosens its spell... The language is as startlingly rich as the terrain, making you look at everything as if you had never seen it before... Geni expertly propels her story into a breathtakingly shocking climax. The nature she describes has no sense of right or wrong. And what's more frightening, neither do her characters, and in this stunning debut, both pull you in and hold you like a riptide." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"Like many literary classics and novels that are destined to be classics, The Lightkeepers raises questions about humanity that are anything but light. Unlike many classics, it's an accessible page-turner whose surprises, both fictional and stylistic, unfold so satisfyingly that the novel is also a pleasure to read." --The Chicago Tribune

"The success of every Hitchcock film ever was built on three things: suspense, surprise and shock. The same could be said of The Lightkeepers, Abby Geni's unnervingly fun new novel... Murder mystery meets psychological thriller meets Darwinian ode in this compelling debut. Geni is a master of elegant plot twists, and her poignant payoff will leave you satisfied but also wanting a bit more time on the island." --PureWow

"Chimeric, constantly shifting from mystery to travelogue to natural horror and beyond. For the first one hundred pages, Geni is content to build tension and atmosphere through pure, distilled prose, foregoing any direct attempts to kickstart the plot. And then, violence. In the end, Geni's transcendent novel is as merciless, strange, and coldly beautiful as the islands she describes... The Lightkeepers is a haunting, brutal, rain- and blood-soaked story of humans at the mercy of nature... With The Lightkeepers, Geni joins the ranks of Barbara Kingsolver and Annie Proulx--novelists for whom nature is a driving narrative force instead of a backdrop. However, Geni's debut is a few shades darker than Prodigal Summer or Close Range, and instead of Kingsolver and Proulx's architectural prose, Geni writes in small, perfect sentences stripped of ornamentation, often single clauses. It's a beautiful effect; pages pass quickly and effortlessly. By the novel's end, you'll crave another journey with Geni to some other wild, forgotten corner of the globe." --Chicago Review of Books

"With her debut novel The Lightkeepers, a beautifully written literary thriller, Abby Geni cleverly ushers the Farallons into the literary fold... Geni's book joins Island of the Blue Dolphins, an old childhood favorite of mine, in something I've deemed the "California Island" literature canon... The corporeal, technicolor sentences in The Lightkeepers allow us to visit, to inhabit a wild gem of the Bay Area, without actually interfering--as humans are prone to do--with the island's brutal grace." --KQED Arts

"Abby Geni's debut novel The Lightkeepers is as wild as the landscape it describes: a nature photographer embarks on a one-year residency in an isolated, dangerous archipelago of islands off the Californian coast, only to encounter violence and a set of companions she cannot trust. Mysterious, vivid, and original, The Lightkeepers will quickly ensnare readers in its cruelly beautiful world." --Buzzfeed

"A remarkable debut novel." --Bustle

"The strange and desolate Farallon Islands serve as the backdrop for this evocative and enchanting debut novel. Geni writes with the clear, calm confidence of a master storyteller. This is a haunting and immersive adventure, set in an unforgettable, wild habitat of its own." --Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)

"Geni follows her distinctive short story collection, The Last Animal (2013), with a first novel of gripping, talon-sharp intensity... As the plot turns violent and suspenseful, and the mesmerizingly vivid descriptions reach shivery crescendos of shocking revelations, Geni dramatically meshes the grand, menacing power of the ruthless wild with the mysteries and aberrations of the equally untamed human psyche." --Booklist (starred review)

"Miranda's travelogue, at once emotional and dreamy and rendered in crisp, stunning prose, is so central to the book that readers may at times forget the underpinnings of the locked-room mystery or brush off the question of her reliability as a narrator. And yet, at other times, the expository velocity is so unrelenting that the prose could almost get lost in the momentum. But not entirely--Geni may be unmatched in her ability to describe nature in ways that feel both photographically accurate and emotionally resonant. Natural wildness, human unpredictability, and the subtle use of literary devices are woven here into a remarkable, vertiginous web." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A dazzling debut. With The Lightkeepers, Geni has crafted a novel filled with wide-open spaces and also a creeping claustrophobia. The setting takes on the role of a character, and the Farallons are masterfully brought to life on the page through Geni's luminous prose. There is a soothing, hypnotic quality to Geni's writing--and an unexpected tenderness, too, one that belies the thick sense of malice and increasing sense of dread that swirls about Miranda's island home. Though some of the plot points are predictable, the story is rife with satisfying surprises, in large part because of the successful air of uncertainty that surround...

"Geni's fascination with the borders between human and animal drives this distinctive sophomore novel . . . Geni continues to create works of art with perfect voices that are simultaneously thrillers and meditations on nature. It is an incredible trick." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

When a Category 5 tornado ravaged Mercy, Oklahoma, no family in the small town lost more than the McClouds. Their home and farm were instantly demolished, and orphaned siblings Darlene, Jane, and Cora made media headlines. This relentless national attention and the tornado’s aftermath caused great tension with their brother, Tucker, who soon abandoned his sisters and disappeared.

On the three-year anniversary of the tornado, a cosmetics factory outside of Mercy is bombed, and the lab animals trapped within are released. Tucker reappears, injured from the blast, and seeks the help of nine-year-old Cora. Caught up in the thrall of her charismatic brother, whom she has desperately missed, Cora agrees to accompany Tucker on a cross-country mission to make war on human civilization.

Cora becomes her brother’s unwitting accomplice, taking on a new identity while engaging in acts of escalating violence. Darlene works with Mercy police to find her siblings, leading to an unexpected showdown at a zoo in Southern California. The Wildlands is another remarkable literary thriller from critically acclaimed writer Abby Geni, one that examines what happens when one family becomes trapped in the tenuous space between the human and animal worlds.