Environmentally conscious Gen Z and Millennial readers will see their reflection in this story of one young journalist and runner's struggle to figure out who she is, where she wants to be, and what responsibility a person has to the world.
On the hottest day in August, 1982, writer, runner, and seeker Sandra Z. Eliot quits a job she finds morally reprehensible—writing ad copy for a shady real estate developer in South Florida-and resolves to go home. In short order, she gets out of the lease on her apartment, sells her rusted Plymouth to a man who looks like John Muir, buys a bus ticket back to Chicago, and leaves the beauty of the Everglades behind.
Back home in Oak Park, the past is still heavy in the air and the familiar streets and storefronts feel like what she needs. Sandra finds an attic apartment, goes back to her old job at the bank, and meets up with old friends . . . but her morning runs reveal discontent, and she's riddled with regret over her contributions to the development that threatens to destroy her beloved Everglades. Should she go back to Florida and fight the development? Or move to yet another state to explore a relationship with someone she's just met? What do you do when the place you call home no longer fits?
