Eco team, billionaire collide in thriller
Eleanor Catton’s “Birnam Wood” is one of 2023’s most sophisticated, stylish and searching literary works, a full-on triumph from a generational talent. Her new novel, titled after a ragtag team of ecological leftists, employs the thriller form to magnificent effect.
Set on New Zealand’s South Island before the pandemic, the novel follows Birnam Wood members as they plant crops and flowers along highway medians and abandoned urban lots. Mira, its self-possessed, 20-something leader, pushes a rigid agenda.
After a landslide near the town of Thorndike, abutting Kurowai, a national park, Mira scouts a former sheep station now owned by Owen Darvish, who has jetted off to London. While trespassing, Mira encounters an American billionaire, Robert Lemoine, who flies a private plane to and from Lord and Lady Darvish’s airstrip. Mid-40s, he’s deep into a secretive business deal with the couple.
Lemoine is the archetype of a sexy, sinister plutocrat. His swagger seduces Mira. In turn, he’s captivated by her assertiveness and guile: He offers her group fields and tools to farm. This strange-bedfellows partnership raises red flags for Tony, Mira’s ex-boyfriend. Tony also stakes out the Darvish acreage, even slipping into Kurowai park, where he discovers a phalanx of drones and a creepy testing site. Something’s amiss in the bush.
“Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane/ I cannot taint with fear.”
The author casts Lemoine as the egomaniacal, selfdeluded Thane of Cawdor and Mira as Lady Macbeth, she of questionable ethics.
Climate crisis, latestage capitalism and male predation: “Birnam Wood”
traverses narrative territory similar to Stephen Markley’s “The Deluge” and Rebecca Makkai’s “I Have Some Questions for You.” But in its scope and execution, it moves beyond these novels.
Catton deftly fleshes out her characters’ back stories; as a child Lemoine taught himself chess. He can’t control each piece on the board, though, and the author keeps us guessing until the startling crescendo.— Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune
The message of “The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession”
comes into clear focus long before the final words of this dissection of what’s wrong with American public education, seen principally through the eyes, ears and experiences of three teachers in different areas of the nation. Author Alexandra Robbins also interviewed hundreds of other teachers, and many of their voices are here, too.
Robbins paints a portrait of public schools where many, if not most, of the educational support systems are crumbling or under attack. Teachers are among the most
altruistic and dedicated of professionals, but they are leaving the classrooms by the thousands. Here are some of the challenges the teachers cite.
Pay and benefits significantly trail other professions.
Resources as fundamental as paper and building heat are often not provided.
Multitudes of parents either are disconnected, unable to control their children, absorbed by their own demons, or hound and threaten teachers.
Some principals pressure teachers into lowering standards to get students to the next grade.
Specialists are in short supply and just one student with special needs in a mainstream classroom can obstruct learning for everyone else.
The anonymous teachers in Robbins’ book retain their dedication despite all these obstacles, but readers are left to wonder how long even the most devoted can retain their fidelity to America’s next generation. “The Teachers” is a call to action that as a nation, we owe our teachers much more than we are giving. As Robbins says, “It’s urgent that we improve their working conditions before it is too late.”