The New Wilderness
In a near-future America where the air in the City has become too foul to breathe and children are dying in the streets, Bea convinces her partner Glen to volunteer their family for an experimental government program. Twenty volunteers, including their failing five-year-old daughter Agnes, are dropped into the Wilderness State, the last protected ecosystem on the continent, and ordered to live there as nomadic foragers under the eye of distant Rangers. They may build no permanent shelter, dig no garden, leave no trace. Over the next decade Agnes grows up wild, illiterate, and alarmingly competent, while Bea begins to ache for the city she fled and to understand that the program has uses neither she nor the Rangers want to name. Diane Cook's debut novel, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, is a stark, beautifully patient piece of climate fiction about motherhood, freedom, and the ground we have left.
Where The New Wilderness keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about The New Wilderness
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In a near-future America where the City air is killing children, Bea volunteers her family for a study and walks her sick five-year-old Agnes into the Wilderness State, the country's last protected land. Twenty subjects live as a moving tribe under research rangers' eyes.
The New Wilderness was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Diane Cook is also the author of the story collection Man V. Nature.
Yes. The New Wilderness is a near-future climate dystopia where 20 people live as nomads in the last protected wilderness area while overpopulated cities choke. It is widely cited alongside The Light Pirate as a defining recent climate novel.
The New Wilderness was written by Diane Cook, published in 2020 by Harper.
The New Wilderness is 209 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The New Wilderness takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
The New Wilderness is a standalone novel by Diane Cook, not part of a series.
The New Wilderness is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
