Diane Cook in Conversation with Dan Polsby, Vintage Berkeley, Virtually

A daring, passionate and terrifying novel about a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the over-developed metropolis they call home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die, but there is only one alternative – joining a group of volunteers in the Wilderness State. This vast expanse of unwelcoming, untamed land is untouched by mankind. Until now. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, Bea and Agnes slowly learn how to survive on this unpredictable, often dangerous land. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of her new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way.

At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood, and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary, compelling novel for our times.

Diane Cook is a critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer. Her debut collection, Man v Nature, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Prize. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, her stories have appeared in Harper’s, Tin House and Granta, and Best American Short Stories. The former producer for This American Life lives in Brooklyn.