But Not for Long

August 3, 2009
Three housemates find themselves in the midst of an eerily plausible energy crisis in Tin House
senior editor Wildgen's solid second novel (after 2006's You're Not You
). Greta moves into Hal and Karin's Madison, Wis., housing co-op to escape her marriage to an alcoholic, only to have him show up on the porch. Hal works for the nonprofit Southern Wisconsin Food Initiative (SWFI), while Karin is an assistant editor, and Greta is a fund-raiser for Grinwall College. Amid a worsening recession—where gas is largely unavailable and the entire city loses power—the housemates each struggle with personal crises, and an investigation into a possible drowning at the nearby lake only increases the sense of impending doom. Hal's mother recently died and he worries about a drop in food donations to the SWFI; Karin is threatened by Greta's arrival, fearing it will disrupt her platonic relationship with Hal; and Greta struggles to distance herself from her husband, Will. Wildgen skillfully shifts between the key players, focusing simultaneously on social and interpersonal issues. With its open-ended conclusion, the novel allows the characters' lives to resonate beyond the final page.

July 15, 2009
Wildgen (You're Not You, 2006) follows three residents of a Wisconsin sustainable-foods co-op during a blackout.

Greta, a fundraiser for Grinwall College, doesn't seem like the cooperative-living type, but housemates Karin and Hal accept her, even though she doesn't cook by the house rules: from scratch with locally grown, organic ingredients. Fit, earthy Karin becomes something of a celebrity in Madison when she rescues a dog mysteriously adrift on Lake Monona. Meanwhile ex-hunter-turned-vegetarian (and closet meat-eater) Hal, who works delivering meals to shut-ins, wallows in worries: his inability to feed his customers as food supplies run short during the blackout, his uneasiness about his widower father's recent move to a cabin in the woods. To compensate, Hal lavishes attention on needy people. When he overstays his time with Mrs. Bryant, an eccentric elderly woman on his delivery route, it almost costs him his job. He then turns to Greta's estranged alcoholic husband Will, who passes out on their porch the first night of the blackout. Flooding in distant cities, rising fuel prices, student unrest, bizarre SWAT and military maneuvers, divers searching the lake for a body and a dearth of information on the cause of the extended blackout (which strains believability) contribute to a sense of impending doom. The characters' impulses to seek out the root causes of these environmental, infrastructural and personal crises go unrealized—which might be the point, or rather nonpoint of Wildgen's portrait of a Slacker-meets-Gen-X crowd and their wanderings. Everything seems to be moving toward an epiphany that never quite arrives—Karin, for example, realizes that her investment in cooperative living provides no guarantees for the future in an unstable world—and frequent digressions into irrelevant back story further mar the narrative flow. The inevitable love triangle and resultant jealousies, the inconveniences and hazards of a blackout, excursions into drugs and alternative lifestyles—none of it ever manages to gain traction.

Interesting subject matter fails to cohere.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2009
Wildgen's second novel has a lot to live up to. Her first, "You're Not You", was a "New York Times" Editor's Choice and one of "People" magazine's Ten Best Books of 2006, and it is currently in development to be a film with Hilary Swank. And it really was a fabulously addictive read. The new book doesn't quite compare. The setting is the sameMadison, WI, with its university vibe and granola-crunchy edge. Three adults share a co-op house: career-minded new member Greta; Hal, who works passionately to feed the hungry; and Karin, a writer. The story starts when a dog is seen floating alone in the middle of the lake. Then a power outage that doesn't seem to get resolved sets off a feeling of strangeness throughout the town. And then Greta's husband appears drunk and asleep on the house porch swing. There's a fashionable "green" edge hereshared housing, farmers' market local shopping and cooking (Wildgen is known for her food writing), and the semiapocalyptic outage is also timely. VERDICT If you loved Wildgen's first book, don't expect the same thing. But if you're all about being green and a locavore, give it a try. [Library marketing campaign.]Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2009
Monday morning starts off fairly normal for Greta, Hal, and Karin, the three residents in the Morrison Street sustainable food co-operative in Madison, Wisconsin. But in no time Hal is frantically trying to get ahold of his father, who lives in the north woods, after not hearing from him for weeks. Gretas alcoholic husband, whom she came to the co-op to avoid, is sleeping on the front porch; and Karin has rescued a dog from the lake and nobody can find its owner. Plus the power grid has fizzled out, leaving most of the southern half of the state in perpetual darkness. These upsets and changes slowly reveal the anxieties and worries that each roommate had thought they kept hidden, and Hal, Karin, and Greta must help each other either deal with their issues or sweep them back under the rug. Wildgens second novel is an engaging story with truly interesting and realistic characters the reader will care about.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)