UNLEASHED

What seems like your basic California wine country empty-nest story goes off in wildly unexpected directions.

At the outset of Emmons' novel, we are introduced to three unhappy people. Lu is the wife of George, a Sonoma vintner and art collector who's lost interest in her and is toying with having an affair with Marley, a local artist. As the book opens, the couple is taking their daughter, Pippa, and her cat to college in LA. Though Pippa is now relentlessly cruel to her mother, Lu still pines for their one-time inseparability and is laid low by her daughter's departure, confronting for the first time the mismatch of her marriage and her disdain for the rich neighborhood women who are supposed to be her friends. As these resentments and disappointments simmer and lead to minor crimes and cruelties, George is called to Florida to take care of his father. As soon as he leaves, wildfires break out near the family's home and winery. Evacuation, disaster, homelessness, and flight ensue. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Pippa has made only one friend, her zoology professor; is a #MeToo story also in the works? But wait, because the biggest twist is yet to come, with an extremely unexpected lurch into the surreal. It feels like the author was riding this plot like a wave; as she says in an author's note in which she reveals that she developed ALS while working on the book, this work "poured out like an opium-induced dream" and "took shape as if [her] conscious mind were not involved." These insights are useful for appreciating this unusual and disconcerting book.

From dreary domestic drama to climate apocalypse to fabulist transcendence...it's quite a trip.