This allows Puchner to explore the "what-ifs" of these characters' lives, all amidst the backdrop of impending climate catastrophe in rural Montana, the novel's idyllic setting.
It is so close to working. That is to say, most of it works. Parts of it don't, quite.
The story is about a group of friends who sort of flit in and out of each other's lives over the 50+ years of the story. But it starts with a terrible betrayal. On the day that Cece and Charlie are supposed to get married at his family's home in Montana, Cece has a change of heart, and instead winds up with Charlie's best friend, Garrett. And we go from there.
The first half of this novel reminded me of Nickolas Butler's Shotgun Lovesongs, one of my favorite novels of the last 20 years or so. It's about reconnecting with friendships formed in the crucible of college. I saw a post just today, actually, from a college student: "Dear Future Child, I wanted you to know I haven't found your mother yet, but I have found your Fun Uncles." That's how a lot of male friendships in college are -- definitely how mine were and still are. And that's largely how they're portrayed here. Garrett and Charlie, of course, reconcile (that's not a spoiler) and Charlie and Cece maintain something of a friendship as well.
Cece and Garrett build a life in the small Montana town. Garrett works for the state, studying and tracking wolverines and climate change's tragic effect on their habitat. Cece opens a bookstore in town.
This novel will always be memorable to me for the "bookstore scene." Here's what happens: Cece convinces a famous author to come read at her small store in the middle of nowhere. But there's a thunderstorm that night, and Cece accidentally takes a sleeping pill and falls asleep during the event, and no one has shown up anyway. It's as cringe as cringe gets, but so relatable if you're in the bookselling world -- like all your worst fears about events come to life in this scene. This scene forms the basis for a major plot hinge, however, which sets the stage for the second half of the novel.
The second half to me -- as we go forward into the future in several-years-at-a-time-intervals, and the characters are wrestling with wild fires and heat waves and erratic weather and the other effects of climate change -- wasn't quite as successful. Time moves much more quickly and we sort of lose touch with the characters. In the first half, we get to know them so well because we spend several hundred pages on only a few years. In the second half, we only check in on them periodically. It was a risky strategy that didn't quite pay off. But it reads quickly and you're never bored. It just doesn't quite have the same emotional impact the first half of the novel did.
I've been thinking about this book for several weeks, trying to parse what I think about it, whether to recommend it or not. It's definitely a unique take on the multi-generational novel, and Puchner is a talented writer who is adept at keeping things moving. So give it a shot, if for no other reason than I need someone to discuss it with. :)
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