SHELTER IN PLACE

After an attack on America destroys the world as she knows it, a woman struggles to survive alone in the forests of West Virginia in Bowling’s dystopian novel.

Aurora Scott knew just where to go when a coordinated cyber-strike brought the United States to its knees. As the widow of a former National Security Agency employee, she’s long been familiar with dangers that lurk in the shadows. Years ago, her husband suggested they buy property “off-grid” and build a self-sufficient home deep in the West Virginia woods; she doubted its necessity at the time, but for six months now, she’s lived there alone, finding a sort of peace in this new isolated life, despite an occasional “lost day…when I let myself get caught up in a bout of malaise and melancholy.” As a former teacher at a wilderness school, she’s in a familiar world, even a beautiful one. Her days are ordered, and she tracks them in her journal; she traps animals, maps the surrounding area, preserves food for colder months, and always watches for signs of intruders. But when she’s driven from her home by threatening strangers and finds a seriously injured young woman in the forest, she finds herself unprepared for the choices she now must make. Overall, this is a stirring and often moving account of one woman surviving the unimaginable and building a new life in the rubble. Bowling’s spare, evocative prose vividly captures the cold beauty of the West Virginia woods, and there’s a bald honesty to Aurora’s story, told through journal entries, that resonates deeply. There are no zombies or killer plagues, but the book has something more compelling: the story of a woman who’s trying to get on with the business of living, and of her gradually shifting perceptions of life as it now is. Indeed, watching someone rediscovering the value of community in a changing world is nothing short of riveting.

A contemplative and quietly brilliant tale of one world ending and another beginning.