The Blue Kind

In Neom the laws of physics are lax and everyone still gets high. The city squares do it so they can keep working non-stop. The hipsters do it so they can accept things as they are and not how they want them to be. And for a thousand years, Alison has done it to cope with the burdens of immortality. If you can’t die, she says, at least you can be as stoned as the living dead.

So begins The Blue Kind, a dystopian drug-fantasy that unfolds in the apocalyptic debris of an all but unrecognizable American city. In the wake of Drug War II, all the soldiers have become dealers and all the women have become collateral for the intoxicants they both peddle and pop like Skittles. But a powerful new drug is rumored to top them all, one that will fix everything wrong with Alison’s life, but one that is cooked and sold by her fiercest adversary: a dealer who threatens to destroy her entire world.

Brimming with a rich and labyrinth plot, indelible characters, and an unforgettable ending, Something Blue is as wild a ride as they come: a free-wheeling read about the cycle of addiction that is, itself, addictive.

Kathryn Born is the editor-in-chief of Chicago Art Magazine, which she founded in 2009. She has since expanded the publication into an online network of websites that offer a comprehensive and organized view of the Chicago art scene. Born is also the coeditor of The Essential New Art Examiner, also published by Northern Illinois University Press.