The Gypsy Moth Summer, Julia Fierro
The Gypsy Moth Summer, Julia Fierro
List: $20.49 | Sale: $14.34
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The Gypsy Moth Summer
A Novel

Author: Julia Fierro

Narrator: Christa Lewis

Unabridged: 12 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/20/2017


Synopsis

It is the summer of 1992 and a gypsy moth invasion blankets Avalon Island. Ravenous caterpillars disrupt early summer serenity on Avalon, an islet off the coast of Long Island—dropping onto novels left open on picnic blankets, crawling across the T-shirts of children playing games of tag and capture the flag. The caterpillars become a relentless topic of island conversation and the inescapable soundtrack of the season.

It is also the summer Leslie Day Marshall—only daughter of Avalon's most prominent family—returns with her husband, a botanist, and their children to live in "The Castle," the island's grandest estate. Leslie's husband Jules is African-American, and their children biracial, and islanders from both sides of the tracks form fast and dangerous opinions about the new arrivals.

Maddie Pencott LaRosa straddles those tracks: a teen queen with roots in the tony precincts of East Avalon and the crowded working class corner of West Avalon, home to Grudder Aviation factory, the island's bread-and-butter. Maddie falls in love with Brooks, Leslie's and Jules's son, and that love feels as urgent to Maddie as the questions about the new and deadly cancers showing up across the island. Could Grudder Aviation, the pride of the island—and its patriarch, the Colonel—be to blame?


About Julia Fierro

Julia Fierro is the author of the novels The Gypsy Moth Summer and Cutting Teeth. Her work has been published in The Millions, Poets & Writers, Buzzfeed, Glamour, and other publications, and she has been profiled in the Observer and the Economist. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Julia founded The Sackett Street Writers' Workshop in 2002, a creative home to more than 3,500 writers in NYC, Los Angeles, and online. SSWW was named "Best Writing Classes" by the Village Voice, Time Out NY, and "Best MFA-Alternative" by Poets & Writers. Julia lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Suzanne

Leslie Marshall returns to Avalon in the summer of 1992 with her African- American husband and their two children. Leslie has inherited her parents estate on the island and her father was once a key executive at Grudder Aviation. Grudder is the island’s biggest employer but environmental issues have......more