The characters in THE EMILYS adjust to their COVID-scarred world as they debate a new epidemic named after Emily Dickinson. Are the sick suffering from a heliophobic virus, or are they tormented by psychosis and anxiety? 

Many books released since the COVID-19 lockdown have set themselves in the uncertain 2020s. This one is bolstered by vivid and unforced details of technology and language, cementing a strong feel of modernity. Heather Abel’s new novel is an exceptional “post-pandemic” story since it is rooted in the world its readers live in without forgetting to captivate with intriguing characters who are navigating “Emily’s disease.” 

The recent woes of Eve Yalen sound familiar enough. She lost her job in Brooklyn, New York, so she moved herself and her two kids to her childhood home in Northampton, Massachusetts. While at a playground with her children, Eve is reunited with her childhood friend, Demeter.

"With its strong character work, vocabulary, and success in illustrating a modern setting, THE EMILYS is evidence that Heather Abel is an emerging talent with a bright future in the literary world."

Their daughters hate going outside. Eve’s Sonya refuses to touch grass since she believes that the souls of New York’s 40,000+ COVID-19 victims have manifested into the grasses of New England. Eve sympathizes with the effect that the pandemic has had on Sonya but worries she is missing out on key developments of childhood that take place in nature. She also stresses over what “nature” in the near future might be like, given rising climate change. Concerns like these, other internalities like the feeling of recognition by thumbs-up reactions and laughing emojis, and externalities like teens in Billie Eilish tour shirts and Northampton’s newfound glut of marijuana dispensaries all give THE EMILYS a profoundly contemporary setting. 

Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, has a darker aversion to the great outdoors. She gets violently ill with too much exposure to light. Hoping that a Northampton doctor might treat her daughter for a real virus, not psychosis like Emily’s disease, Demeter enlists Eve’s help. Eve’s mother, Joan Yalen, wrote a series of famous children’s books. Demeter hopes that the esteem of Eve’s surname will deter the doctor’s concerns of why Persephone cannot attend school. Having grown up in an array of communes that practiced holistic remedies and pseudoscience, Demeter is used to doubts about her and being seen as a “hippie.” In the doctor’s office, Abel formally introduces readers to the conflict of sympathizing with and believing Demeter, but with a nagging worry that the characters might be combatting an illness of the mind. 

Alternative lifestyles have a major presence in THE EMILYS. Besides Demeter, there’s Stephen, a self-proclaimed “lay scholar of collectives,” who buys groceries from food co-ops and works at a bike collective. He also operates “The Medical Mystery Collective,” which gathers people with loved ones affected by Emily’s disease. He eventually is teamed with Ruth, a gay librarian with a quiet, genius-level intellect, and another character named Will. 

Most of the book is Eve’s first-person narration, but there are supporting, third-person chapters that focus on the efforts and journeys of Ruth, Stephen and Will. Initially, the story is moved by Eve’s experiences with Demeter and Persephone as the secondary characters’ chapters explain past developments or hint at future ones. Abel’s ability to write in first- and third-person perspectives allows her to master foreshadowing. This helps the reading experience feel set, with readers knowing where they are at each point in the narrative and what will move it forward. 

But once Ruth reads a 19th-century memoir that discusses “Sightflower,” a cure for “Sun Madness,” she and her fellow secondary characters start to merge with Eve’s primary narrative. They enlist Eve in their search for Sightflower, and the book kicks into overdrive with two sources of movement. As they look for the legitimacy of Emily’s disease, the connection of these Northampton residents and their loved ones creates a constant feel of community. Abel doesn’t exactly make Northampton out to be a paradise, but readers will feel that her story is set in a real place with real people. 

THE EMILYS can be both a very direct novel, with a clear goal of health and developments (or setbacks toward that) and a robust stream-of-consciousness story. It never loses sight of its plot, but sometimes it can feel like the day-to-day journal of an overwhelmed mother. Abel can depict Eve’s introspection, like when she discloses how she gets others to open up to her, and then go right into an abstract thought of how transactional God seems. Though the secondary characters’ chapters are shorter and don’t use “I” statements, they feel just as intimate as Eve’s sections. Abel even effectively portrays 19th-century writing when Ruth reads the Sightflower memoir. 

With its strong character work, vocabulary, and success in illustrating a modern setting, THE EMILYS is evidence that Heather Abel is an emerging talent with a bright future in the literary world.