This novel of contagion and collapse is also the story of love’s unlikely survival in the most
hostile conditions” (Karen Russell bestselling author of Swamplandia!)—from the National Book
Award-nominated author of The Book of Aron. In a tiny settlement on the west coast of Greenland
11-year-old Aleq and his best friend frequent trespassers at a mining site exposed to
mountains of long-buried and thawing permafrost carry what they pick up back into their
village and from there Shepard's harrowing and deeply moving story follows Aleq one of the
few survivors of the initial outbreak through his identification and radical isolation as the
likely index patient. While he shoulders both a crushing guilt for what he may have done and
the hopes of a world looking for answers we also meet two Epidemic Intelligence Service
investigators dispatched from the CDC--Jeannine an epidemiologist and daughter of Algerian
immigrants and Danice an M.D. and lab wonk. As they attempt to head off the cataclysm
Jeannine--moving from the Greeland hospital overwhelmed with the first patients to a Level 4
high-security facility in the Rocky Mountains--does what she can to sustain Aleq. Both a
chamber piece of multiple intimate perspectives and a more omniscient glimpse into the
megastructures (political cultural and biological) that inform such a disaster the novel
reminds us of the crucial bonds that form in the midst of catastrophe as a child and several
hypereducated adults learn what it means to provide adequate support for those they love. In
the process they celebrate the precious worlds they might lose and help to shape others that
may survive.
