Allegra Hyde

An optimistic parable about idealism, activism, and systemic corruption, centered on a naïve young woman's quest for agency in a world ravaged by climate change. Willa Marks has spent her whole life choosing hope. She chooses hope over her parents' paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job at a donut shop, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels sure she's found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black, an avenging warrior, the only person smart and sharp enough to wake up the world and force it to take action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever. And then she finds a book in Sylvia's library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies down to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The crew's leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the camp's public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope's mission--but at what cost? A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Eleutheria

Last Catastrophe

"Allegra Hyde's debut story collection, Of This New World, offers a menagerie of utopias: real, imagined, and lost. Starting with the Garden of Eden and ending in a Mars colony, the stories wrestle with conflicts of idealism and practicality, communal ambition and individual kink. Stories jump between genres--from historical fiction to science fiction, realism to fabulism--but all ask those fundamental human questions: What do we do when we lose our utopia? What will we do to get it back? Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in the Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants and disrupt the social ecosystem. The neglected daughter of a floundering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her ungroovy grandmother. A wounded veteran gets lost in erotic fantasies of his twin brother's life. Haunted by her years at a collegiate idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May Alcott's famous family for help. And in the final story, a down-and-out drug addict gets a second chance at life in a government-sponsored space population program, only to be flummoxed by erectile dysfunction. An unmissable debut, the collection charts the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope"--

Of This New World

“Allegra Hyde’s seductive first novel tackles the big stuff of climate change and the more intimate matter of heartbreak with grace. Indeed, Eleutheria bravely braids these together, the story of a lost soul moving through the world we’re rapidly losing.” —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind Willa Marks has spent her whole life choosing hope. She chooses hope over her parents’ paranoid conspiracy theories, over her dead-end job, over the rising ocean levels. And when she meets Sylvia Gill, renowned Harvard professor, she feels she’s found the justification of that hope. Sylvia is the woman-in-black: the only person smart and sharp enough to compel the world to action. But when Sylvia betrays her, Willa fears she has lost hope forever. And then she finds a book in Sylvia's library: a guide to fighting climate change called Living the Solution. Inspired by its message and with nothing to lose, Willa flies to the island of Eleutheria in the Bahamas to join the author and his group of ecowarriors at Camp Hope. Upon arrival, things are not what she expected. The group’s leader, author Roy Adams, is missing, and the compound’s public launch is delayed. With time running out, Willa will stop at nothing to realize Camp Hope's mission—but at what cost? A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Allegra Hyde

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