Trashlands

by Alison Stine, Brittany Pressley (Read by)

Overview

For fans of Lidia Yuknavitch and Ling Ma, Trashlands is a gripping and wildly imaginative literary speculative novel about a woman searching for her son, and for meaning through the impossible task of creating art in a world that doesn’t value it, in a near-future setting where climate has changed the geography and plastic is currency.

In the region-wide junkyard in the remote mountains of what was once Appalachia, Coral lives and works in a group of migrant workers called pluckers, because they pluck plastic—one of the nation’s primary currencies now—from rivers and fields to sell or trade. Along with her partner, a tattoo artist named Trillium, Coral lives in an old school bus at Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at the edge of the junkyard, whose neon sign casts a pink glow over everything and whose owner rules as unofficial mayor. Many of the local women are also dancers at the club, though Coral has always resisted that particular path.

Coral spends her days fishing out plastic to sell, in a seemingly impossible bid to save enough to rescue her son from the recycling factories. He was kidnapped by child labor traffickers seven years ago, and Coral has been stuck at Trashlands ever since. She spends her precious spare hours creating art pieces from some of the refuse: sculptures that she leaves anonymously in the woods.

A reporter named Miami arrives from the “elite” coastal cities, and he promises to pay Coral to be his guide to the area. What Coral and Miami don’t count on is falling in love. Coral has a choice, for maybe the first time in her difficult life, to stay or to strike out with Miami for the cities on the coast. It could mean more opportunities for safety, for food, for work. It could mean a chance to practice the art that has always called to Coral. But it would mean leaving the only family she’s every known—and it would mean her son wouldn’t know where to find her, should he finally escape.

When an infection caused by a random, stupid injury uses up all of Coral’s hard-won savings, Coral is faced with an unhappy proposition: if she dances at Trashlands, the owner will pay her everything she needs.

Told in multiple, alternating perspectives, Trashlands is a love story to survival in an unloved place, a testament to the enduring powers of art and resistance, and a tale of one mother’s strength to overcome the unbearable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665104807
Publisher:	Harlequin Audio
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.50(h) x 5.00(d)

About the Author

Alison Stine grew up in rural Ohio and now lives in Colorado. Her first novel, Road Out of Winter, was the winner of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. Recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Geographic, she has been published in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and elsewhere.

Brittany Pressley has won several Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration in 2018. She has recorded over one hundred titles and has received several nominations for American Library Association’s annual list of Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults. She is also an accomplished singer-songwriter and voice actress. Her voice can be heard on national and international TV and radio commercials as well as several animated series and video games. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/28/2021

Philip K. Dick Award winner Stine (Road Out of Winter) sets this searing exploration of the lives of women who are mired in grinding poverty in a climate-ravaged near-future where plastic has become humanity’s only currency. The sordid strip club Trashlands in flood-prone “Scrappalachia” serves as the narrative hub as the novel shifts through multiple characters’ recollections and struggles. Among the expansive cast are the good-hearted sex-workers Foxglove and Summer; the vile Rattlesnake Master; single mother Coral, a scavenger of plastic who makes eerie art out of garbage; Coral’s lover, Trillium; the idealistic reporter, Miami; and the aging Mr. Fall, a teacher who agrees to help Coral find her stolen son. “You couldn’t be picky and live” in this rotting junkyard where women are treated as disposable and life comprises a heartbreaking miasma of hunger, yearning, ruthlessness, and compassion. Stine draws on her personal experience of today’s Appalachia to craft a harrowing vision of the future, and at its center is the tug-of-war between what is right and what is necessary to survive. This painful, thought-provoking apocalypse noir fires on all cylinders. Agent: Eric Smith, P.S. Literary. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for TRASHLANDS

“I felt every single word of this prescient novel deep in my blood. Inventive, expansive, and wild at heart, Trashlands proves that a mother’s love will outlast all else, even the earth’s ruin. Alison Stine writes like no other—with trademark ferocity and covert warmth as her characters make miracles out of what the rest of the world threw away. Stunning, through and through.” —Amy Jo Burns, author of Shiner


Praise for Road Out of Winter, winner of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award

“Richly imagined, deeply moving and unthinkably offers hope in a world that uncannily resembles ours currently in the thick of COVID-19…. Gloriously well-written.” –Ms. Magazine


"With echoes of The Road and Winter’s Bone, Stine's latest is an excellent feminist dystopian novel of survival, desperation and, ultimately, hope.... Sublimely written and with much for book clubs to discuss, this book is highly recommended for all collections." —Booklist, starred review


“Blends a rural thriller and speculative realism into what could be called dystopian noir. The author’s vision is profoundly moving… Readers searching for a novel fueled by fierce intelligence and empathy will find here a celebration of humanity, and a warning against its loss.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Haunting… Stine’s prose is crisp and atmospheric, and though bleakness abounds, the ending strikes a lovely balance of hope and pathos. Fans of climate fiction and found family stories will be entranced.” —Publishers Weekly


“A closely observed, evocative portrayal of place in a time of extreme duress. A warning about who we become and who we want to be in an uncertain future. Beautifully written and essential.” —Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of Hummingbird Salamander

From the Publisher

Welcome to a dystopian hellscape in which coastal cities are washed away and survivors scavenge for scraps of plastic to trade for food and goods. Narrator Brittany Pressley enhances the bleakness of this world. As her voice depicts the environment, every word is heavy with hopelessness. She brings grim resignation to Coral, a plastic "plucker" whose young son, Shanghai, is forced to work in a factory. Pressley adeptly shifts between Coral and the voices of child slaves, erotic dancers, drugged-out factory guards, and the “mayor” of Trashlands, who rules through violence and exploitation. When a journalist arrives to research life in “Scrappalachia,” Coral begins to envision a different future for herself and her son. Listeners are left feeling their engaging story is only just beginning. J.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

Welcome to a dystopian hellscape in which coastal cities are washed away and survivors scavenge for scraps of plastic to trade for food and goods. Narrator Brittany Pressley enhances the bleakness of this world. As her voice depicts the environment, every word is heavy with hopelessness. She brings grim resignation to Coral, a plastic "plucker" whose young son, Shanghai, is forced to work in a factory. Pressley adeptly shifts between Coral and the voices of child slaves, erotic dancers, drugged-out factory guards, and the “mayor” of Trashlands, who rules through violence and exploitation. When a journalist arrives to research life in “Scrappalachia,” Coral begins to envision a different future for herself and her son. Listeners are left feeling their engaging story is only just beginning. J.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile