It is 2027, August Helm is thirty years old. A biochemist working in a lab at the University of Chicago, he is swept off his feet by the beautiful Amanda Clark. Animated by August's consuming desire, their relationship quickly becomes intimate. But when he stumbles across a liason between the director of his lab and a much younger student, his position is eliminated, and his world upended. August sets out to visit his parents in the heart of Wisconsin's Driftless area. Here, he reconnects with several characters from his past: Ivan Bookchester, now a freethinking advocate for the new ways of living in an age of decline; Hanh, formerly known as Jewelweed, who tends her orchard and wild ginseng, keenly attuned to patterns of migration resulting from climate change; and Lester Mortal, the aging veteran and fierce pacifist who long ago rescued her from Vietnam. The old friends fall back into a familiar closeness. But much as things initially seem unchanged in the Driftless, when August is hired to look after a home in a gated community, he finds himself among wealthy newcomers who both fear and are resented by those outside the gates. Here, August falls head over heels for April Lux, an intensely alluring woman whose shocking revelation will change all involved forever.-- Back cover.