FICTION

Lighthouse Island

by Paulette Jiles
Morrow. Oct. 2013. 400p. ISBN 9780062232502. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062232526. F
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Nadia Stepan grows up an orphan in a far future in which population explosions coupled with extreme drought have led to a world of class extremes, an endless city, and water rationing. To maintain calm among an increasingly desperate populace, calendar dates, street names, and all the identifiers of time and place have been abandoned and television dramas are the preferred entertainment. Nadia, always an outsider, reads instead of watches TV, and when a rival sets her up to be captured in a population sweep, she evades arrest to leave the megalopolis and walk to Lighthouse Island, a utopian dream.
VERDICT With the lack of quotation marks to denote speech, the style becomes part of the dystopia, as if even basic grammar has devolved. The barrier between thoughts and spoken word is broken without those grammatical queues, making the text dreamlike. Nadia's wandering journey maintains that hopeful anticipation of deep sleep. This is not a fast read, but if readers take the time, Jiles (Color of Lightening; Stormy Weather) has created a fascinating dystopic vision of a future world. [See Prepub Alert, 4/22/13.]
Reviewed by Jennifer Beach, Cumberland Cty. P.L., VA , Oct 04, 2013
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