The Optimistic Decade
Framed by the oil shale bust and the real estate boom, by protests against Reagan and against the Gulf War, The Optimistic Decade takes us into the lives of five unforgettable characters, and is a sweeping novel about idealism, love, class, and a piece of land that changes everyone who lives on it.
There is Caleb Silver, the beloved founder of the back-to-the-land camp Llamalo, who is determined to teach others to live simply. There are the ranchers, Don and son Donnie, who gave up their land to Caleb, having run out of options after Exxon came and went and left them bankrupt. There is Rebecca Silver, determined to become an activist like her father and undone by the spell of Llamalo and new love; and there is David, a teenager who has turned Llamalo into his personal religion. But situated on a plateau in the heart of the Rockies, Llamalo proves that it might outlast anyone’s heady plans for it, from the earliest Native American settlers to the latest lovers of the land.
Like Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, Heather Abel’s novel is a brilliant exploration of the bloom and fade of idealism and how it forever changes one’s life.
Select Praise
The Optimistic Decade is a stunning and unusual debut. Heather Abel’s subjects are political idealism. American-style lust for land, and the perils and pleasures of young love. Her voice is warm, beautifully funny, and completely original. Although the novel spans decades and tackles big themes, its intimate moments and vivid creation of an unforgettable landscape are what continue to haunt me. Once you enter the world of this book, you — like the characters — will find it hard to leave.
Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life
Abel, who previously worked as a reporter, is a perceptive writer whose astute observations keep the book funny and light even under the weight of its Big Ideas…Is this a book about the failure of Zionism, an exploration of the limits of idealism or a literary coming-of-age novel? It’s a bit of all three. Most interestingly, it doesn’t just rehash the story of the Holy Land we already know, but imagines a new, subversive ending.
The New York Times
Abel’s politically and psychologically acute debut … combines a wry sense of humor with compassion towards all of her misguided characters. A strong sense of time and place anchors the story, and Abel’s well-crafted plot brings all the strands of the story together into a suspenseful yet believable conclusion. Without landing heavily on any political side, and without abandoning hope, Abel’s novel lightly but firmly raises questions about how class and cultural conflicts play out in the rural West.
Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review
I loved every minute I spent reading Heather Abel’s The Optimistic Decade, a sharply rendered portrait of the United States in 1990. The novel is rich in the conflicting energies of the time — lingering resentments from the previous decade’s stark class divisions, a renewed hope for the decade to come — and these clashes are played out over the course of one summer at a Colorado camp. … The result is an exuberant and nonjudgmental examination of the unique conflicts of the era.
Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed News
The Optimistic Decade deserves the elusive accolade of “original” for its believable construction and flawless attention to detail. Within the brilliant, multilayered canopy of the novel’s world, Heather Abel’s writing comes across as a sincere and tender channel for a story that must be told… This could be classified as a coming-of-age tale, but the growth is not limited to the adolescents. The adults experience just as much disruption and turmoil as their younger counterparts, spinning a rippling theme of never-ending expansion of the self. Above all else, this strong, astute debut is a study of love in many forms. To read it is nothing less than a mitzvah.
The Optimistic Decade is an exceptional coming-of-age novel, in which Abel proves herself a witty social observer who understands not only the thrum and throes of adolescence, but also the power and beauty of youthful energy and dreams.