From best-selling novelist T. C. Boyle, a satirical yet ultimately moving take on contemporary American life in the glare of climate change.

Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.

But there’s more than meets the eye in this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century California and Florida is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet’s future. An ecothriller with teeth, Blue Skies is vibrant, penetrating satire that reveals the inexpressible sadness at the heart of our existence.

About the Author: T. C. Boyle is a novelist and regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has published eighteen novels, including World's End and The Tortilla Curtain, and twelve collections of short stories. A Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, he lives in Santa Barbara.