Composite Creatures

December 21, 2020
Poet Hardaker (Bone Ovation) explores corporate greed, health-care inequality, and the limits of human relationships in her deliciously weird fiction debut. Recently engaged couple Norah and Art hope to carve out a spot for themselves in a perilous, disease-ridden near future. Survival isn’t easy, but health-care company Easton Grove helps its members prolong and augment their lives by harvesting strange creatures called ovum organi, though how exactly this treatment works is kept eerily vague. The lucky members of Easton Grove bring the ovum organi into their homes and treat them as a hybrid of children and pets, though they must frequently be replaced with fresh creatures. Norah and Art are initially excited to take theirs in, but as they navigate the joys and pitfalls of this odd parenthood, they uncover disturbing secrets about the state of the world and their relationship with both their ovum organi and Easton Grove. Hardaker’s nuanced prose and great sense of character ground the story as it delves unabashedly into the surreal, consistently catching the reader off guard with eerie imagery and delightful twists on expectations. Readers willing to work to unravel this strange dystopian world will be rewarded with a tale that is as thought-provoking as it is chilling. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock Literary.

February 15, 2021
Hardaker presents a post-climate change world where the very earth and air have become toxic, dooming most human beings to an eventual ""greying"" unless they can somehow secure access to the exclusive experimental treatments provided by private health-care companies. The bulk of the narrative follows Norah, a member of private health-care provider Easton Grove, as she and fellow member Art meet, exchange portfolios, and then move in together, all for some mysterious purpose. Hints of this purpose are revealed with the arrival of Nut, a catlike creature whose health and well-being are somehow essential to Art and Norah's future and to Easton Grove's plans. As Norah and Art's boundaries with each other and with Nut continue to shift and change beyond what Easton Grove has laid out for them, the disturbing purpose of their carefully planned existence comes into clarity. Hardaker creates her dystopian world of poisoned soil and privatized health with prose that feels as precise and clinical as her subjects' lives. Highly recommended for those interested in the work of Jeff VanderMeer and other biologically based, climate change-related dystopian fiction.

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