About this item
"Bighearted, wise, and beautifully written, this sharply observant exploration of idealism gone awry engages at every level." - Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal and Archangel This entertaining and assured debut novel about a utopian summer camp and its charismatic leader asks smart questions about good intentions gone terribly wrong. Framed by the oil shale bust and the real estate boom, by protests against Reagan and against the Gulf War, The Optimistic Decade takes us into the lives of five unforgettable characters and is a sweeping novel about idealism, love, class, and a piece of land that changes everyone who lives on it. There is Caleb Silver, the beloved founder of the back-to-the-land camp Llamalo, who is determined to teach others to live simply.
About the Author
Heather Abel is a fiction writer and journalist. She grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in Northampton, MA. In between, she wrote about fossil hounds, gold mines, bananas, best friendships, protest, and motherhood (among other obsessions) . Her debut novel, THE OPTIMISTIC DECADE, out in May from Algonquin Books, is about idealism and disillusionment and a piece of land in the high desert that changes everyone who lives on it.
