{"product_id":"book-hje3","title":"Blue Skies","description":"\u003cp\u003eDenied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like \"jewelry, living jewelry\" to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young \"Burmie\" she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire and outrageous events that comes to threaten her very survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: start\"\u003e\"Brilliantly imaginative … in a terrifying way\" (Annie Proulx), \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e follows in the tradition of T. C. Boyle's finest novels, combining high-octane plotting with mordant wit and shrewd social commentary. Here Boyle, one of the most inventive voices in contemporary fiction, transports us to water-logged and heat-ravaged coastal America, where Cat and her hapless, nature-loving family-including her eco-warrior parents, Ottilie and Frank; her brother, Cooper, an entomologist; and her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd-are struggling to adapt to the \"new normal,\" in which once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters happen once a week and drinking seems to be the only way to cope.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: start\"\u003eBut there's more than meets the eye to this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century Californians and Floridians attempting to preserve normalcy in the face of violent weather perturbations is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet's future. From pet bees and cricket-dependent diets to species die-off and pummeling hurricanes, \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e deftly explores the often volatile relationships between humans and their habitats, in which \"the only truism seems to be that things always get worse.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: start\"\u003eAn eco-thriller with teeth, Boyle's \u003cem\u003eBlue Skies\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a tragicomic satire and a prescient novel that captures the absurdity and \"inexpressible sadness at the heart of everything.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Recorded Books, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49354659692848,"sku":"BDhje3","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":49354659725616,"sku":"ZEhje3","price":59.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio MP3-CD","offer_id":49354659823920,"sku":"ZMhje3","price":45.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/hje3-cover.jpg?v=1761194362","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-hje3","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}