Trashlands

Praise for Trashlands

Longlisted for the 2022 MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD, the 2022 READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD, and a finalist for the 2022 OHIOANA BOOK AWARD

“In Trashlands, Stine builds a world in which dark times have descended. And yet, she insists, the things that make us human persist. This is her ballad to love in a time of darkness — future and present.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES

“A gripping story of family, humanity, and perseverance.” —GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

⭐ “This painful, thought-provoking apocalypse noir fires on all cylinders.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

⭐“Beyond the prescient plot, Stine’s characters shine with rich interior lives…Highly recommended.” —BOOKLIST (STARRED REVIEW)

“Trashlands is part apocalyptic clifi, part hard-scrabble rural noir, and all heart…The people of Scrappalachia make art, they make families, they make homes, and they make deals. They care for each other, and they refuse to give up the will to survive. Trashlands feels like a fairly accurate depiction of our future, and of the love that we’ll need to make it through.” —CRIME READS

“Engrossing … A nicely balanced blend of dystopian tragedy, love, and hope.” —KIRKUS

“It was the moment that the action exploded like a firework. When all these pieces Stine established, suddenly bloomed and began connecting. The moment these fragments of life, hints to the shrouded past, became clear. And then I couldn’t put Trashlands down until I was finished."—UTOPIAN STATE OF MIND

“Stine’s writing is clear, unadorned, and honest yet electrifying, much like her characters…This is a captivating and fascinating novel, set in a future which seems alarmingly likely.” —NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS

“I felt every single word of this prescient novel deep in my blood. Inventive, expansive, and wild at heart, Trashlands proves that a mother’s love will outlast all else, even the earth’s ruin. Alison Stine writes like no other—with trademark ferocity and covert warmth as her characters make miracles out of what the rest of the world threw away. Stunning, through and through.” —AMY JO BURNS, AUTHOR OF SHINER

“A triumph. Trashlands is that rare piece of clifi that reminds us that the apocalypse will not be evenly distributed. Poor people on the edges of the world where the water will rise strive here in Stine's prescient imagination: harvesting plastic, doing sex work, tasting the future that should have been in the last few cans of Coke. This book is as biting and sweet and as dark as that bubbling old-world treat…It's about time someone sang us the song of trailer parks and strip joints of the post-apocalyptic South and Stine has the right voice to do it…Readers who want more like Atwood's The Year of the Flood or Valente's The Future is Blue will be lucky to wash up on Trashlands' littered shores." —MEG ELISON, LOCUS AND PHILIP K. DICK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE

“Alison Stine’s visionary novel Trashlands is beautiful and painful at once, much like the devastating world of the future that she sees to the page here. I was left in awe of her imagination and deeply moved by her brave and unforgettable characters.”—NOVA REN SUMA, AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING THE WALLS AROUND US

“Alison’s Stine’s newest novel, Trashlands, is audacious, unsettling, and beautiful. And like all great apocalyptic stories—perhaps all great novels—it invokes both terror and tenderness. Stine is at the top of her game and Trashlands is a literary page-turner—fiction at its finest.”—BRYAN BLISS, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF WE’LL FLY AWAY