Trashlands by Alison Stine

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Coral is a “plucker” in the rivers and woods of what used to be southeastern Ohio, searching for plastic to recycle in a world severely damaged by climate change. After catastrophic weather events and major shoreline changes, the United Nations agreed to halt production of materials which would continue harming the environment and threatening the lives of millions more. What once was created with wild abandon is no more. Old plastic is currency, able to provide an income for the crews of pluckers living in desperate times.

Food is scarce. Medicine is scarcer. Outside the coastal cities (“The Els”—short for “The Elites”), people have learned to grind acorns for flour and to appreciate every source of protein, even from insects. A running vehicle is extremely rare and of great value. Even inside the cities life is rough, although the ultra-rich certainly have more insulation from reality than the poor.

Trashlands is a junkyard in the region now known as Scrappalachia. For centuries Appalachia was exploited for natural resources, and now trash is just another thing to be culled from the landscape. The junkyard takes its name from the dingy strip club contained within, pink neon sign flashing day and night. A man named Rattlesnake Master rules it all and provides his dancers lodging (paid for by their plastic tips, of course) and rents out space to others as well, those fortunate enough to find an abandoned vehicle for shelter.

Alison Stine has created a post-apocalyptic world which feels all too possible. Her characters feel real, while they scrape out a living however they can. Coral’s partner Trillium is the camp tattoo artist, inking many a drunken man passing through—or for a price, inking their names onto Foxglove, one of the club’s most exotic dancers. Mr. Fall is the camp teacher and also Coral’s adoptive father, having found her as a baby alone but unharmed, in the remains of a burned Dairy Queen. Coral’s son Shanghai is an invisible presence for much of the story, kidnapped and forced to work in a factory sorting plastic and forming bricks for new construction in the cities. Miami is a reporter from one of the Els, exploring Trashlands for a story, or possibly something more.

The resolution of the story leaves many questions, making me wonder what happens to several of the main characters. Rather than being frustrating, the way Stine writes the ending leaves it in a way that the readers can ponder the possibilities and the paths that the characters may take in their future. I don’t think that she is setting up the story for a sequel, although that is always possible. It feels more like we have been invited to observe the characters in a specific time and space, and now that the time is over we simply hold memories of people we once knew.