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Loading... The Light Pirateby Lily Brooks-Dalton
   No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) majortree | Dec 5, 2024 |  I'm surprised by how moved I am by this one, how much I loved it. The story is broke in to 4 parts. Each part is centered around the current issue to survival. Because the world is dying. Sure, it's slow, but we always think we have more time. We won't see the break down of nature and society in our lifetime. We have time. But in this world, they are running out of time. Weather in Florida has become even more unpredictable. The storms are larger than they've ever been and keeping the infrastructure of roads and power and water going is becoming difficult and costly. I like that our story is somewhat cocooned. I think if this story was about the complete breakdown of it all, it would be too sad, too real. I like that it focuses on this small town, this small moment - each part jumping in time to give you the next step of survival. The connection you feel to both the people and to the land/nature as the story goes on is quiet. It sneaks up until you realize you are mourning each loss of parts while celebrating the return of others. It wasn't a fast read but it was moving, I'm glad I got this as my BOTM read. It was so good! (  ) Trisha_Thomas | Nov 14, 2024 |  ) ablachly | Nov 5, 2024 | ) Hccpsk | Aug 30, 2024 |  ) wandaly | Jun 27, 2024 |
Driving through the American South, I once saw a church sign that prodded: “Are you ready? It wasn’t raining when Noah built that ark!” ... The characters in Lily Brooks-Dalton’s second novel, “The Light Pirate,” are better prepared than many, but when, after years of hurricanes and flooding, the federal government announces that their home state of Florida is being abandoned, “released back into the wild,” they too are bewildered. “That’s the real bet they all made, isn’t it?” a struggling father asks himself. “It will come. But not until we’re gone.” ... The novel extends across Wanda’s lifetime; homes and family are lost, as some characters die and others adapt and endure. Brooks-Dalton has a different sort of vision for the post-apocalypse, one that’s not so dystopian....In the final section, the story takes an unexpected utopian turn. ... Wanda, who has loved few and lost all, finds a perfect partner and becomes, seemingly overnight, a communitarian in a peaceful, idyllic group. It’s good to read an alternate and more hopeful story of how life might be experienced on a planet that is partly dying but also evolving, even if fewer humans remain. Are you ready? It will come. Hurricanes are eating away at Rudder, Florida. With coastlines eroding all over the world, it seems impossible that the town will survive. The Lowe family clings to their home, bracing for each storm that rolls through. Frida, eight months pregnant, wants to evacuate, but spouse Kirby doesn’t. He’s a lineman, and the town depends on him for power. Frida is left with her stepsons, but as Kirby works in the sheeting rain, they disappear into the fray too. Ten years later, Frida’s daughter, Wanda, has formed her own relationship with Rudder.... As the town erodes, Wanda uses her power to hang on. With disaster haunting every moment, the true ensemble cast narrates, switching points of view when necessary. Wanda doesn’t appear on the page for some time, yet her presence permeates the text. Brooks-Dalton (Good Morning, Midnight, 2016) paints a luminous and wrenching portrait of a frighteningly possible future. Brooks-Dalton (Good Morning, Midnight) tells the gripping if underdeveloped story of a Florida family devastated by a hurricane, with hints of magic and a transformed landscape as the timeline stretches into the near future.... By the end, Brooks-Dalton’s vision for what might be includes a radically changed state of Florida. Though the magical elements are unexplained and extraneous, the author sustains a steady pace from one storm to the next. Climate fiction aficionados will eat this up. Brooks-Dalton creates an all-too-believable picture of nature reclaiming Florida from its human inhabitants, and her complex and engaging characters make climate disaster a vividly individual experience rather than an abstract subject of debate. Catastrophic climate change seems all too real through the eyes of a Florida girl. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"From the author of Good Morning, Midnight comes a hopeful, sweeping story of survival and resilience spanning one extraordinary woman's lifetime as she navigates the uncertainty, brutality, and arresting beauty of a rapidly changing world. Florida as we know it is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state's infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker for the local utility municipality, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before. As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature. Told in four parts-power, water, light, and time-The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness"-- No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.12)
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