{"product_id":"blue-skies-9781324095187","title":"Blue Skies","description":"Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like \"jewelry, living jewelry\" to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young \"Burmie\" she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire and outrageous events that comes to threaten her very survival.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Brilliantly imaginative . . . in a terrifying way\" (Annie Proulx), \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e follows in the tradition of T. C. Boyle's finest novels, combining high-octane plotting with mordant wit and shrewd social commentary. Here Boyle, one of the most inventive voices in contemporary fiction, transports us to water-logged and heat-ravaged coastal America, where Cat and her hapless, nature-loving family--including her eco-warrior parents, Ottilie and Frank; her brother, Cooper, an entomologist; and her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd--are struggling to adapt to the \"new normal,\" in which once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters happen once a week and drinking seems to be the only way to cope.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But there's more than meets the eye to this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century Californians and Floridians attempting to preserve normalcy in the face of violent weather perturbations is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet's future. From pet bees and cricket-dependent diets to massive species die-off and pummeling hurricanes, \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e deftly explores the often volatile relationships between humans and their habitats, in which \"the only truism seems to be that things always get worse.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An eco-thriller with teeth, Boyle's \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a tragicomic satire and a prescient novel that captures the absurdity and \"inexpressible sadness at the heart of everything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Liveright Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/21\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781324095187\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 384","brand":"T. C. Boyle","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43799828594869,"sku":"9781324095187","price":15.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_6c80496e-1735-421e-a640-efc0dfa63eb6.jpg?v=1711479068","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/blue-skies-9781324095187","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}