An electrifying debut novel about a young woman and her desire for sleaze whose idyllic summer
on a remote Alaskan homestead takes a disturbing turn. "Sexy and dark and strange and
absolutely perfect." Carmen Maria Machado "Puppy love meets jaded lust to dance their
death spiral inside a young woman's head ... I ate it up." Nell Zink Tourists arrive all
summer by boat or seaplane at Stu and Maureen Jenkins's Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge in
the Kodiak Archipelago expecting adventure. But the spontaneity of their authentic Alaskan
wilderness experience is meticulously scripted except when real danger rears its head. Stu and
Maureen's lodge is failing as is their marriage. Mira has been hired for the season as the
lodge's baker and housekeeper. But she's also busy gleefully nursing twin obsessions: building
a working theory of what constitutes 'sleaze' and pursuing a young fisherman she deems the
embodiment of all things deliciously sleazy. Her plans become more perverse and elaborate even
as life on Lavender Island starts to unravel. By midseason it becomes clear that Stu the
jovial predatory patriarch of the lodge has turned his sexual attentions to another young
employee. As the mood of the lodge spirals into chaos the inhabitants realize just how
isolated Lavender Island really is. Hilarious sensual and charged with menace The
Seaplane on Final Approach brilliantly illuminates the mirage-thin line between the artificial
and the feral. In this daring and psychologically razor-sharp debut Rukeyser's characters tear
aside the facade of good manners to reveal all of our deepest needs and naked desires.
