The Sunlight Pilgrims

May 30, 2016
It’s 2020, and the coldest, harshest winter in 200 years is about to pummel the United States and Europe. In London, Dylan MacRae closes his family’s deeply-in-debt boutique cinema for the final time, and, carrying the ashes of his recently deceased mother and grandmother with him, he heads north to a small caravan park in Clachan Fells. His mother left him a caravan home there, and he plans to stay until springtime, when he can spread her and his grandmother’s ashes further north. Upon arrival, Dylan quickly befriends Stella, a 12-year-old trans girl, and her mother, Constance, a furniture refinisher, who live next door. Together, the trio becomes a tight unit to face the oncoming wintery devastation. Dylan and Constance begin a romance, and Stella struggles with schoolyard bullying, as well as her oncoming puberty. Fagan (The Panopticon) once more employs a heightened version of reality—in her debut, it was high-security juvenile detention; here, it’s a second Ice Age—to set in motion a series of small, intimate narratives. Characters devote long stretches to exploring the world, making gin, and rolling snowmen. Though not as gripping as her previous effort, Fagan has still constructed a vivid story.

February 1, 2016

Named one of Granta's Best Young British Writers in 2013, Fagan debuted with the marvelously trenchant The Panopticon, which was short-listed for multiple awards and was an LJ Best Book. This new work opens in November 2020 as the world experiences a sudden chill. Most Londoners are fleeing the icy, overflowing Thames for warmer southern climes, but Dylan is going north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands they once called home. Along the way, he meets 12-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, who are readying themselves for one cold winter in their caravan park in the Highlands. I'm really anticipating this one.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2016
Fagan's follow-up to her debut, The Panopticon (2013), is set in 2020 in a remote Scottish village called Clachan Fells at the onset of a massive, worldwide winter-weather crisis. After the deaths of his grandmother and mother, Londoner Dylan MacRae, 38, is surprised to discover that his mother, Vivienne, purchased a caravan (trailer) home in Clachan Fells. Forced to let go of the small movie theater his family ran, Dylan moves into the caravan. He soon meets 12-year-old Stella, a transgendered preteen who has just started living as a girl, and her beautiful, mysterious mother, Constance, who is known, and judged, for having two longtime lovers, one of whom is Stella's father, the oft-married Alastair. As plummeting temperatures cause disaster throughout the world, Fagan gracefully chronicles Stella's struggles with the ridicule of her peers and Dylan's blossoming as he makes a surprising familial discovery and falls in love with Constance. Gorgeous and vividly rendered, Fagan's second novel is a beguiling, beautiful testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)