Heather Abel

Idealism vs reality collide in this thoughtful novel, set in the 1970s - 1990s, amongst conflicted back-to-the-landers and radical journalists. The main characters are "red diaper" babies, the children of Movement parents. Caleb yearns to be a cowboy and establishes Llamalo, a survivalist summer camp in the high mesas of Colorado. His young cousin, Berkeley freshman Rachel, is sent to the camp when her parents, publishers of revolutionary newspaper Our Side Now, make a momentous decision. show more She joins David, a year younger, who dreams of staying at Llamalo forever. Escadom, the former boomtown nearest to the camp, abandoned by Exxon when the company determined that shale drilling would be too expensive (foreshadowing the later fracking boom), is home to Don and his son Donnie, who reluctantly sold their ranch to Caleb when their income collapsed.

All of these characters make for a very pungent stew of class conflict. Caleb, idolized by the campers and despised by Donnie, chooses a new female counselor as consort each summer, an entitlement that really stings in this #METOO era. Rebecca and David, on the other hand, glide into a lovely sexual initiation that is so perfectly drawn, from both perspectives, that's the best I've ever read.

There's a lot going on here, and no one gets out very happy (except the reader). I hope that author Abel can continue this story in a second novel with the growing and changing of these memorable characters in the new millennium and beyond.

Quote: "The promise of pleasure was itself so pleasurable that he almost wanted to prolong this expectancy." show less

Gluten. SMGDH. This short read is the author's experience on being diagnosed with Celiac disease (even after it disappeared from America) and the rise of "gluten intolerance". It's an interesting read that makes you question what our collective diet is all about -- and does it really need to be so gluten heavy? However, it also seems like this is the author's attempt to get a book deal.

The “Optimistic Decade” when so many thought they could effectuate change by writing and talking and discussing. This was the time of self-discovery by the young while the adults were busy elsewhere. Behind all this optimism the large corporations fed the marginalized promises of more and better opportunities. For small isolated towns it was a modern-day gold rush, but when the profits did not materialize towns were decimated and inhabitants lost everything.

Constantly jabbing at me was show more the universal theme of parents who are so self-involved in their causes that they ignore the children who love them unconditionally. Is it possible for an intelligent person to not understand that the strength of their personality, the incapacity to listen, the neglect of affection ultimately deprives their children of the ability to build their own sense of belief and character? Is it any surprise that these young people try to emulate the teeth-gnashing diatribe about the injustices of the sociopolitical system?

David will run away from the mess and search out a more accepting place. He will understand that his parents’ “ideas are all wrong. For them everything is anti, against. And this anger at everything, it means they’re basically paralyzed.” Rebecca, will try to please her father and do as asked because she sees her him as a brilliant, brave, decision maker who is always and ever all about all issues of inequality and injustice as he publishes another manifesto and ultimately is unable to give her more than his confusion. And then there is Caleb, the always happy Leader who arrived at his destiny through little more than right place, right/wrong time and a bit of chicanery. Caleb’s visionary summer camp, LLamalo ,“The-West of-which- I-speak”, Colorado, located on lands formerly known as the Double L Ranch and owned by father and son, Don and Donnie Talc who want their land back.

Can the vision survive “when the world feels malleable and the self strong” or is it only for a decade, gone and never to return?

This book left me with a sense of disbelief. If I am honest it is my failure to realize and acknowledge that things happened exactly as described in this book. Well written but slow moving.

Thank You NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an ARC show less

Set in 1990, with a backstory in the 1980's, this is a novel of miscommunication of all sorts: things unsaid, things said but not meant, mis-statements, and things misunderstood. Llamalo is a camp created by Caleb and designed to be a kind of wilderness utopia. In 1990 Rachel, a Berkeley student, ends up there for the summer at the behest of her father, who doesn't want her to know that he is terminating his left-wing newspaper. Her childhood friend David has been attending this camp for show more years and is obsessed with its philosophy and the charismatic Caleb. As the story unfolds, though, we learn that all is not as it seems. The narrative intersperses explanations from the past that somewhat explain the unraveling of the present. At times the motivations of the characters are not fully developed, and the conversations seem disjointed. Perhaps that's intentional, because readers will realize that the characters' actions and words lead to unintended results. show less