THE MAGPIE'S RETURN

A gifted girl finds her life thrown into chaos during a period of societal upheaval in this dystopian literary novel.

Math prodigy Kayla sticks out from the herd. The middle schooler takes high school calculus classes while generally trying to avoid being victimized by her peers. The rest of the country is not much friendlier than her middle school, particularly since the rise of Arthur McNally and his populist, anti-intellectual movement based on exclusionary Christian nationalism. After McNally wins the presidency and Russia and the nations of Asia destroy themselves in a nuclear war, America is forced to undergo “The Great Shut-In” until radiation levels return to normal. During the resulting social unrest, Kayla’s professor father becomes involved in the Movement, a nonviolent protest organization at odds with McNally’s government. Things come to a head when her father is pulled from their house by their neighbors and lynched in the street. Kayla’s mother and uncles are arrested, forcing the teen to go into hiding. After she is betrayed by a friend’s family, Kayla ends up in a school for girls who have lost their families during the government’s purges. Here, Kayla must learn how to keep herself from becoming a victim—and to plan her revenge on those who destroyed her family. Smith’s prose is lyrical and controlled, creating a dystopia that is realistic in its mundane brutality. Here, Kayla witnesses her father’s hanging: “Slater lifts his arm, and the shirtless man yanks the rope. Another man rushes forward and grips the rope, then another. My father rises, an imitation of fight. His hands claw the noose, the spastic kick of his feet, the rope’s wild sway.” The author masterfully depicts America’s crisis through the perspective of one girl even as he shifts the point of view through the novel—first person, second person, third—to highlight major reorientations in Kayla’s life. While there is no shortage of novels offering nightmarish visions of the near American future, this one manages to stand out both in its realism and its resistance to simple moralizations. It’s all the more frightening for it.

An affecting futuristic tale that manages to feel both urgent and timeless.