WILDWOOD

In Castano’s literary novel, a woman intending to end her life spends a few days in a mostly abandoned shore town.

Wildwood, New Jersey no longer exists…at least, not as it once it did. Destroyed by a hurricane in 2029, it was rebuilt, only to be knocked down for good by a second storm in 2030. When 22-year-old Maya Valencia disembarks at the Wildwood bus terminal in the winter of 2035, she finds something akin to a ghost town: “Only every fourth or fifth streetlamp worked, if barely. No ambient glimmer from front porches or second-floor residences. Boards nailed over most windows. Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, bashed and looted.” She takes a room at the Sea Gull Motel, and the next morning she visits the town’s infamous Elea Clinic, known for its assisted suicide procedures. Maya suffers from multiple sclerosis, and though she hates the thought of leaving her younger sister, Celeste, alone to fend for herself, she knows Celeste will be saddled with her medical bills if she allows the disease to progress. The catch: The law requires the patient to spend four nights in New Jersey before undergoing the procedure. As Maya rides out her final days at the Sea Gull, she encounters a number of people in similar situations, including Glenn Haversham, a middle-aged failed “businessman” with a history of aggrieved partners and cheated clients trailing behind him. Glenn’s looming suicide seems like it might be an act of sheer exhaustion, but he and Maya find common ground. In this ghost town filled with soon-to-be ghosts, the normal routines of life are pulled away just enough to perhaps allow Maya to find something worth living for. Castano’s Wildwood is a truly imaginative netherworld, complete with a Death District where people can settle their affairs. Glenn encounters the former Dollar General, now “‘Parentalia Advisors—Conclusionary Consultants’,” offering “‘Wills-Insurance Advisement-Asset Transfers-Estate Planning-Tax Guidance.’ An all-you-can-eat-buffet of administrative chores.” Short but richly drawn, this is a beautiful rumination on all the things, good and bad, we leave behind.

An imaginative and tender novel about assisted suicide.