THE SEVENTH MANSION

In this strange, inventive first novel, Meijer examines the ethics of environmental activism through the prism of teenage angst and idealism.

When 16-year-old Xie lands in hot water after liberating minks from a local farm, his despairing father hires a tutor and yields control of their vegan diet to Xie. Ostracized in his Southern town and at school for his radical politics, Xie's only friends are Leni and Jo, fellow travelers in their three-person punk environmentalist group FKK. Despite his political convictions, Xie is quiet, anxious, and uncertain of himself. Meijer writes in jagged sentence fragments, highlighting Xie's skittering internal dialogue. At times the effect is lyric and prismatic; at others, Xie's narrative comes out in heaving gasps—as if he is afraid to reveal his innermost desires even to himself. At the heart of the book lie questions about what it means to live an ethical life under late-stage capitalism, including how best to love others. Leery of physical contact, Xie becomes obsessed with Pancratius, a fourth-century saint martyred for refusing to slaughter a lamb, whose bones he discovers in a local chapel. After Xie steals the skeleton, he begins a spiritual and erotic relationship with P., as he calls the saint, who follows Xie, ghostlike, from tutoring sessions to club dance floors to environmental actions. Late in the novel, Xie must at last confront why he's driven to environmental action at the expense of his physical and mental well-being. "Why did you call me here," Xie implores his ghostly boyfriend. "P.'s hands on his hips from behind. That breath that is not breath on his neck. Night heavy on his head. I didn't call you, beloved. You called yourself." From the first golden rays of P.'s ghostly form to the tragedy and triumph of Xie's final protest, Meijer spins a contemporary fable of lust, devotion, and transgression that will challenge readers to examine all the ways they move through the world.

A sensitive, nuanced meditation on radical politics, queerness, and the responsibility of care.