Light Pirate
FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE
Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda--a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane--as she navigates a rapidly changing world: A "symphony of beauty and heartbreak" (Associated Press).
USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
A Good Morning America Book Club pick - #1 Indie Next pick - LibraryReads pick - Book of the Month Club selection - Marie Claire #ReadWithMC book club selection - 2022 NPR "Book We Love" - New York Times Editors' Choice
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state's infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.
As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.
Told in four parts--power, water, light, and time--The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.
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Community Reviews
Florida has been cut off by the government and left to be reclaimed by Mother Nature. And no, it’s not for reasons you would think.
The Light Pirate focuses on Wanda and everyone in her orbit. Frida and Kirby, Wanda’s parents, Lucas and Flip, Wanda’s brothers, start us off at the beginning of Hurricane Wanda. Frida, scared and pregnant, wants to evacuate. Kirby, a lineman in Florida, feels prepared to handle the hurricane. Kirby is, sadly, wrong, and so many deaths later, Wanda is born prematurely right in the middle of the hurricane.
Wanda grows up with a much smaller family and is seen as “the strange girl” since she’s named after the most destructive and deadliest hurricane to hit Florida at the time. Florida is becoming nearly desolate as people keep evacuating, as storms and hurricanes keep pounding the state, as the state government is running out of money to keep up infrastructure, electricity, cell towers. Eventually, Miami is closed down and people relocated, so the rest of the Floridians see their own fate.
Wanda ends up staying with Phyllis, a survivalist, who teaches her everything she needs to know to survive the newly wild Florida. Mother Nature, climate change, the wild slowly reclaim the state. We really only focus on Florida but we find out via other characters that climate change is destroying the entire US. California is on fire, coastal states are crumbling into the ocean, sinkholes are taking back entire cities and towns.
The characters in The Light Pirate knew this would happen…some day. But none of them believed they would live to see it, until they do. Most people are ill-equipped to survive this landscape, but some, like Wanda, end up thriving. This is really such a great book (without preachiness on climate change - although, come on, this will probably be real some day) that focuses on loss and how to change and survive despite losing everything.
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