Mudlark - by Mary Helen Specht (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A dazzling dystopian novel about the fall of a troubled rockstar, her long-lost solo album, and her daughter's epic search for redemption in the ruins of New York City.

"Combines the spellbinding worldbuilding of Station Eleven with a rock-and-roll heart . . . A luscious, awe-inspiring, and gorgeously written novel about love and how it will save us, no matter what the future holds."--Amanda Eyre Ward

Jenny Sweet's marriage is ending--and with it her band and maybe even her fragile relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Neko. A reluctant wife and mother, Jenny plans a new journey of self-discovery after one more gig at Burning Man. But when Neko disappears amid the chaos of the festival, Jenny fears that everything that mattered to her has been lost. As she races against the dark, Jenny finds herself thrown into the past, and into the heart of a gathering storm.

Now twenty-five, Neko is a mudlark: a trained recruit who braves the rival factions and feral survivalists in the ruins of a crumbling, flooded Manhattan for resources that grow scarcer by the day. When she stumbles upon the master of her mother's long-lost solo album and later hears that someone else is searching for it--someone who could be her mother, missing for over a decade--she embarks on a perilous adventure with a ragtag crew that will take her from treetop societies to decadent raves to the underground bunker where she will, finally, confront her mother's fate--and her own.

A profound tale of resilience set in a future wracked by calamity and buoyed by hope, Mudlark is an unforgettable novel that explores how love and art persist as beacons of humanity.

Review Quotes

"Lyrical, introspective . . . Mudlark's ruins feel eerily tangible--not just because of their climate change origins, but because of their enmeshment in arts and culture, the piecemeal way detritus and contrived normalcy coexist, and the intricate human relationships at the heart of the story."--The Austin Chronicle

"Mudlark is absolutely hypnotic--a page-turning tale of a dark, near-future New York, told with all the lyrical grace of the best literary fiction. I was completely swept away."--Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Ferryman

"Combines the spellbinding worldbuilding of Staion Eleven with a rock-and-roll heart . . . A luscious, awe-inspiring, and gorgeously written novel about love and how it will save us, no matter what the future holds."--Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters

"Intricate, propulsive, thoughtful, beautiful . . . Mudlark does it all. It's a book about mothers, daughters, and rock-and-roll; about who leaves and what is left behind; about what can be saved from a damaged world we haven't loved enough. It is an amazing book that takes readers to all sorts of depths--full of wonders [and] gorgeously written."--Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book

"A tour de force . . . a feminist Odyssey through a world as dazzling as it is dark, as strange as it is familiar, a story about the future but also about what it is to be alive now: a mother, a child, a person trying to find their way home on a planet that has been irrevocably altered. I churned through the pages, grateful that this marvelous book has been written."--Louisa Hall, author of Reproduction

"A stunner . . . audaciously imaginative, brutally tender, a love letter and a cautionary tale. Mary Helen Specht has conjured a frightening, vivid and profoundly humane exploration of resilience amid the ruins."--Jennifer Dubois, author of The Last Language

"A gorgeous, brilliant, heart-stopping quest . . . In the sliver of light between the ending of one civilization and beginning of another, a mother is calling out for her daughter, and a daughter is looking for her mom. This book has the rock-and-roll energy and style of legendary heroes who screamed out their ballads in leather jackets and cool boots. I inhaled this book and would take it with me if I had to grab my things fast before the water reached the window."--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

"A beautiful story of human relationships amid devastation, and how love and art mend, even in the darkest of times. . . . Mudlark is richly imagined, ambitious, and propulsively written. . . . I was captivated, terrified, and amazed at Specht's tender and brilliant imagination. This book is truly original."--Nina McConigley, author of How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

"Immersive . . . Specht offers a clever look at one possible version of the future of climate change. It's a vivid cautionary tale."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Mary Helen Specht is the author of Migratory Animals, a New York Times Editors' Choice and winner of the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers' League of Texas Fiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, and numerous other publications. A Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria and Dobie-Paisano Writing Fellow, Specht currently teaches creative writing at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, where she lives with her family.