So Easily Swept Away

An artful and timely novel, gathering up the reader in a tightening vortex of unfounded conspiracy and human frailty. Charming, quirky and heart-warming, So Easily Swept Away reminds us there is beauty in our need to be connected. Jarvi just wants to tuck away in seclusion, to ride out what’s left of his dwindling, middle-management career. Scotty just wants to remain in anonymity, to imagine a useful purpose for himself in the conspiracy theory world in which he dwells. Both struggle to make sense of the social isolation into which they each have been cast, and both feel lost among the wider, menacing anxieties of climate change, disruptive technology, and public distrust. Set within the spectre of a rare hurricane hurdling through inland New England, ravaging their small town of Parsonage and the tenuous hold it has to modernity, each must confront their own personal loss when hiding inside oneself is no longer an option. To step outside of the damage within, they each may have to take on the damage occurring all around. Touching carefully on the ease at which we can be lonely even when surrounded by community, So Easily Swept Away takes a less conventional look at the crush of modern life, what it means to be left behind and still “be,” and what it can mean to earn one’s way back to belonging.