As city limits expand, stretching into suburbs and once countryside lands, urbanization could one day spread until there is no wildlife left. In this Cli-Fi novel, Diane Cook depicts a future where the City has reached past all limits, leaving only one natural place left: the Wilderness State. The imaginative world Cook creates considers our relationships with each other, survival and power. Unlike classic dystopias, Cook’s novel reveals our destructive relationship with nature. The story is one of caution—to reexamine our actions, before the climate crisis leads to extreme consequences.

One mother, Beatrice, takes arduous sacrifices for the health of her daughter, Agnes. The harsh realities of urban expansion, notably pollution and smog, affect Agnes’ health. Beatrice watches as her daughter’s health deteriorates, complicated with the lack of medical care. With her scientist husband, Glen, Bea and Agnes join an experiment to live in the Wilderness State—the outdoors the only way to heal Agnes. Along with a group of volunteers, they exist only off the land, under the condition to leave no trace behind. The group must remain nomads, moving every seven days or risk being fined by the Rangers patrolling the state.

The novel opens, as Beatrice lies alone on the dirt floor, giving birth to a stillborn baby girl. As she says farewell to Madeline, Bea joins Glen and Agnes in their cave, unaware all three are grieving. Despite the closeness in the wild together, Bea acts composed for Agnes and Glen, though we learn later that Agnes craves to know more about her mother; however, at her young age, Agnes lacks the capability to strengthen her relationship with her mother. Beatrice, driven in the fervent protection of her daughter, keeps secrets of her own. Until Agnes’ life comes full circle, she does not truly understand her mother.

Far from her past as an interior designer, Beatrice’s days now consist of survival. Unlike the romantic notion of living in the wild, Cook demonstrates the blunt reality of the natural world as a harsh place to survive, variable to changes within seconds. Climate change pushes extreme weather. In one scene of the book, a dust storm emerges without warning, separating the Community. Bea and Agnes have each other and a bag of limited supplies. Bea takes note of the animals’ responses to nature, observing the birds’ flight to find a water source for the night. As Agnes grows, living the most formative years of her childhood in the wild, she teaches the Community instinctual habits we forget as city dwellers.

Furthermore, Cook brilliantly captures in her novel how humans react to power structures. At orientation in the Wilderness State, the Community receives a manual, with a set of rules to follow. The manual acts as a social contract, the group respects the rules, in exchange to live in the Wilderness State. Some characters act as rule-followers, others as rule-breakers and most somewhere in between. The Rangers patrol the Community, fining them for littering, going to a restricted area and even dying. The Rangers remain their sole contact to the City and control the narrative on the outside world. Once trust breaks between the Community and the Rangers, the social contract, the Manual, is broken; Community members survive on instinct. Cook examines power at the beginning of what feels like the end of the world: how we respect it, question it and attempt to escape it.

Cook’s book is a warning examining the future of the climate crisis. In what feels like at times an unmanageable obstacle, the climate emergency will affect our lives, our health and our planet. Beatrice’s intense protection for the survival of her daughter reminds us of solidarity rights, particularly the right to a healthy environment. Right now, our planet is spiraling into a dystopian future; it is up to us to advocate, challenge and change current systems to secure a better world for generations to come.

I will think about the themes of Diane Cook’s novel again and again. The New Wilderness is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. The winner will be announced on November 19th.