Eleutheria, Allegra Hyde's debut, is a classic story of utopian yearning and collapse, updated to incorporate present-day concerns about climate change and the erosion of democracy. The novel begins when Willa Marks sets foot on the island of Eleutheria, determined to join a kind of eco-centric utopian commune called Camp Hope. Led by Roy Adams--whose book Living the Solution had a powerful influence on Willa--Camp Hope is meant to provide a blueprint for confronting climate change and environmental degradation. The camp also satisfies Willa's desperate need for optimism, to combat deep emotional wounds that the novel spends much of its length sensitively exploring.
Eleutheria frequently delves into Willa's past, starting with her traumatic upbringing by a pair of conspiracy-theory addicts and half-hearted survivalists who raise her on visions of soon-to-arrive apocalypses. After their deaths, Willa tries to escape her grief, as well as her parents' doom-and-gloom predictions, by joining up with Boston's utopian-minded Freegans and beginning an odd but increasingly intense relationship with a Harvard professor. As Willa struggles through young adulthood, grim visions of the future begin to develop in the background.
Hyde (Of This New World: A Story Collection) has many concerns--recurring chapters piece together the island's bloody colonial history, for example--but they are all anchored by the character of Willa Marks. Willa is a live wire, hurting and causing pain as young people often do. More alarming than Eleutheria's dark future might be how accurately it captures the sense of teetering between apocalypticism and hope, which seems as descriptive of the present as it is of an imagined future. --Hank Stephenson, the Sun magazine, manuscript reader