Solitaire: a novel - Softcover

Eskridge, Kelley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931520100 ISBN 13: 9781931520102

Publisher: Small Beer Press, 2011

Synopsis

Now a motion picture: OtherLife.

A New York Times Notable Book, Borders Original Voices selection, and Nebula, Endeavour, and Spectrum Award finalist.

"Suspenseful and inspiring."—School Library Journal

"A stylistic and psychological tour de force."—The New York Times Book Review

Jackal Segura is a Hope: born to responsibility and privilege as a symbol of a fledgling world government. Soon she'll become part of the global administration, sponsored by the huge corporation that houses, feeds, employs, and protects her and everyone she loves. Then, just as she discovers that everything she knows is a lie, she becomes a pariah, a murderer: a person with no community and no future. Grief-stricken and alone, she is put into an experimental program designed to inflict the experience of years of solitary confinement in a few short months: virtual confinement in a sealed cell within her own mind. Afterward, branded and despised, she returns to a world she no longer knows. Struggling to make her way, she has a chance to rediscover her life, her love, and her soul—in a strange place of shattered hopes and new beginnings called Solitaire.

Kelley Eskridge is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. Her stories have received the Astraea Award and been adapted for television. A movie based on Solitaire is in development. She lives in Seattle with her partner, novelist Nicola Griffith.

About this title

Review:

Ren Segura, Jackal to her friends, is the Hope of Ko Island, the world's only corporate nation state. Born at the right time, she is part of an elite group that will inherit powerful positions representing their nations in EarthGov. She has been groomed for the moment of her ascension her entire life--it is her birthright and her destiny. But a deadly secret makes her an inconvenient liability to her corporate masters and, in Solitaire, destinies are not always in the cards. Caught between corporate loyalty and self-doubt, Jackal finds herself cast away to an experimental, virtual solitary confinement program that will change her forever.

Author Kelley Eskridge's first novel is an intense and powerful tale of self-discovery set in a convincingly articulated future. She skillfully keeps the reader turning pages as Jackal's fate unravels. Meanwhile, Eskridge deals with issues of crime and punishment, corporate power, and even fame with a deft touch that keeps the reader painfully close to the young Jackal's journey into oblivion and back again. --Jeremy Pugh

About the Author:

Kelley Eskridge: Kelley Eskridge's novel Solitaire was a New York Times Notable Book and a Borders Books Original Voices selection, and a finalist for the Nebula, Spectrum, and Endeavour awards. Her stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan, won the Astraea Award and been finalists for the Nebula and James Tiptree awards. Her collection Dangerous Space was published by Aqueduct Press. Her story Alien Jane” was adapted for television and a film adaptation of Solitaire titled OtherLife was produced by Cherry Road Films. She lives in Seattle, WA.

About this edition

• Publisher: Small Beer Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1931520100
• ISBN 13: 9781931520102
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352