LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

Climate disaster provides both setting and a sense of urgency to Zhang’s second novel.

“I fled to that country because I would have gone anywhere, done anything, for one last taste of green sharp enough to pierce the caul of my life.” A cloud of smog has enveloped the Earth, hiding the sun and killing most of the planet’s food crops. A young chef takes a job at an “elite research community” perched atop an Italian mountain. Her employer is enigmatic and unnerving. His daughter is brilliant and headstrong. And the chef soon discovers that she is imprisoned in a simulacrum of paradise bound by secrets and ghosts. But, as she cooks lavish meals for those who can afford to escape the smog, she has access to crème fraîche, strawberries, and a French breed of chicken that should be extinct. To say that the narrator represents the moral center of this universe is not to say that she is incorruptible. This is, among other things, a story of what survival looks like in a world riven by gross inequality, and the narrator’s choices are driven by self-interest. Often, those choices come with a side order of self-loathing—a familiar dynamic for many participating in late capitalism. None of this, however, should suggest that Zhang has written a manifesto. Instead, she reminds us of what it’s like to be embodied and living on Earth with sumptuous scenes of food and sex. Zhang earned bountiful accolades—including being longlisted for the Booker Prize—for How Much of These Hills Is Gold (2020), and her skills have only increased since she wrote her stunning debut.

Mournful and luscious, a gothic novel for the twilight of the Anthropocene Era.