News of the Air

Allie Krane is heavily pregnant when she and her husband flee urban life after a rash of eco-terrorism breaks out in their city. They reinvent themselves as the proprietors of a northwoods fishing resort, where they live in relative peace for nearly two decades. That is, until two strange children arrive by canoe. Like the small ecological disasters lapping yearly at their shore, have the problems of the modern world finally found Allie, her husband, and their troubled cypher of a teenage daughter? This eco-novel of a family, told from three points of view, explores how we remake our lives once we open our hearts to all the news we've chosen to ignore.

Jill Stukenberg writes the rural north as if she was born with one hand on the throttle of an outboard motor and the other taking notes on the back of a beer napkin. In NEWS OF THE AIR she offers an unknowable, imagined future that is utterly plausible.--Sarah Stonich, Vacationland

Jill Stukenberg's NEWS OF THE AIR is an unforgettable novel of our troubled moment. No relationship, private or public, is insulated from the dangers of a collapsing nation drowning, afire, poisoned, profoundly divided. The mother/daughter relationships at the novel's center capture perfectly the countless ramifications that come from toxic secrets and from ignoring the truth. The many memorable characters here are marked by the intensifying grief and pain of learning to leave: learning to leave behind their limiting romantic notions of home; learning how and when to transcend their bare lonelinessand to, at last, disappear into a new honest condition of discovery. Reading News of the Air is truly a life-changing experience.-- Kevin McIlvoy, One Kind Favor

The North Woods. Who escapes to it? Who escapes from it? In NEWS OF THE AIR, a novel set in that mystery-filled world, author Jill Stukenberg explores the two questions with a keen eye and a literate pen. Stukenberg knows the denizens of The Woods: the owner of the run-down bar; the city exec with a showy cabin and expensive weekend parties; the struggling owner of a small resort. These, as well as the folks who surround them, are tangled in mysteries that only The Woods can weave.--Faith Sullivan, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse

NEWS OF THE AIR is a dreamy, mysterious, novel of the Northwoods. A book about regret and loss, love and friendship--all set in and around a familiar Wisconsin lake resort where the visitors and locals comprise a compelling cast of characters. The perfect novel for a hammock or comfortable fireside chair.--Nickolas Butler, Shotgun Lovesongs and Godspeed

Fiction. Environmental Studies.