Gypsy Moth Summer
by Fierro, Julia






Returning to her family's grand estate off coastal Long Island, Leslie is confronted by a damaging gypsy moth invasion, prejudices toward her biracial family and her son's romance with a local drama queen, a situation that is overshadowed by a suspicious outbreak of deadly cancers.





JULIA FIERRO is the author of the novels The Gypsy Moth Summer and Cutting Teeth. Her work has been published in The Millions, Poets & Writers, Buzzfeed, Glamour, and other publications, and she has been profiled in The Observer and The Economist. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Julia founded The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop in 2002, a creative home to more than 3,500 writers in NYC, Los Angeles and Online. SSWW was named "Best Writing Classes" by The Village Voice, Time Out NY, and "Best MFA-Alternative" by Poets & Writers. Julia lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.





*Starred Review* In the summer of 1992, Avalon Island is invaded by pestilential colonies of gypsy moths. In spite of the plague, defiant teen Maddie is determined to enjoy the summer, but the voracious caterpillars are not the only threat to her happiness. Someone is confronting the aviation factory, the island's main economic driver and possibly the source of carcinogenic pollution. Maddie's grandparents, the once-feared and revered Colonel Pencott and his wife, Victoria, have returned from their mainland retirement to rescue the business, but the simultaneous homecoming of their prodigal heiress, Leslie Marshall Day, along with her children and her African American husband, Jules, a botanist, creates racial tension in the prejudiced town. As the moths blanket the island, Jules struggles against their meaningless destruction, Victoria fights to protect her husband's legacy, and Maddie and Leslie and Jules' son are drawn to each other, as everything is shadowed by political and social unrest. Though the novel is initially hampered by character inconsistency, Fierro (Cutting Teeth, 2014) hits her stride and succeeds in creating a suspenseful, richly symbolic drama and coming-of-age story. Poignant, raw, and, at times, brutally honest about the poison concealed behind the charming facade of a quaint community, this is an intense and meaningful read. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews.





The summer of 1992 is pure hell on an insular islet off the coast of Long Island."GRUDDER IS CANCER / GRUDDER KILLS," reads the graffiti on the local war memorial. Tensions flare on Avalon Island as a defense contractor called Grudder Aviation runs into economic and environmental problems. Dealing with the fallout both publicly and privately are three generations of the islands' most prominent families, who live on magnificent side-by-side estates. If an author is God to her characters, the people of Avalon must have done something to offend Fierro (Cutting Teeth, 2014). For lo, she hath visited upon them toxic waste; racial bigotry; class resentment; vandalism; children strung out on drugs watching snuff and porn videos; abusive fathers, husbands, and dog owners; senile dementia; a weak peacetime economy; the rise of Bill Clinton; murder; suicide; stillbirth; and, undoubtedly worst of all, a biblical plague of gypsy moth caterpillars, described over and over in excruciating detail. Young lovers take to the woods-and listen to "the cack-cacking of the caterpillars feeding and the patter of chewed-up leaves spat thousands at a time onto the forest floor." Jeans are "spattered with [the] black slime" of caterpillar excrement, the little buggers are found in socks, bras, and ball gowns, there are "swarm[s] of caterpillars slithering across the window" and hands "slick with their gummy remains." Still, as one character points out, "perhaps a plague was just what the island needed." To get them through these revolting times, the characters find inspiration in sources as diverse as the plot of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the essays of James Baldwin, and the radical enlightenment offered by Oprah: "After each Oprah episode, she was depleted. To have eighty years of preconceived notions shattered, and then rearranged, in just forty-five minutes." Jam-packed with stereotypes, bad sex scenes, and clichés of every kind, this book has something to appall almost anyone. Copyright Kirkus 2017 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.






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