

The Free People's Village
Author: Sim Kern
Narrator: Sophie Amoss
Unabridged: 12 hr 32 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 09/12/2023
Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction, Nature, Lgbtq+
Synopsis
Maddie Ryan is a 24-year-old English teacher at a predominantly Black high school in Houston. Teaching is just a job for her; it pays the bills, and she lives for band practices with her queer punk band, Bunny Bloodlust.
When Maddie learns that the neighborhood where she teaches and her band plays is to be sacrificed for a new electromagnetic hyperway out to the suburbs, she joins a Black-led organizing movement fighting for the neighborhood. At first, she’s only focused on keeping
her band together and getting closer to the band’s guitarist (and her crush) Red.
But working with Save the Eighth forces Maddie to reckon with the harm she has already done to the neighborhood—both as a resident of the gentrifying Lab and as a white teacher in a predominantly Black school.
When police respond to their protests with violence, the Lab becomes the epicenter of “The Free People’s Village”—an occupation that promises to be the birthplace of an anti-capitalist revolution.
In The Free People’s Village, Sim Kern dares to ask the question that many socialjustice-minded individuals have long grappled with: When justice comes knocking, will you be brave enough to answer?