***FINALIST 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year***
"Edendale is a sly and smart novel that contains multitudes-itʼs strange, funny, dark, violent, frightening, compelling, and mysterious. Jacquelyn Stolos takes many exciting risks on the page, and together these risks accumulate to become a powerful and unique story about young, alienated people trying to find their way in an inhospitable world."-Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California
In northeast Los Angeles, wildfires rage and coyotes stalk the neighborhood streets. The wind blows heavy with smoke and, inside a rented bungalow on hilly Lemoyne Street, the air grows heavy with something else.
Ropey closes his checking account and transfers his net worth to his sock drawer. Megan sharpens pencils and chops produce to obsession. Lyle tightens his grip on his girlfriend Egypt, whose growing dependence makes her question everything, especially Lyle. And Captain America, the cat of the house, finds his orange coat giving way to a nest of bleeding sores. As the fires burn ever closer, will the four friends wake up to their false paradise?
Jacquelyn Stolos' eco-horror debut explores the ways rape culture can permeate relationships of all kinds, making us examine our agency in our own lives and the world at large.