Wildwood

By Tim Castano

“I’m here to die,” says twenty-two-year-old Maya of her visit to Wildwood, New Jersey.

In 2035, the shoreside town has transformed from vacation playground into a barely habitable landscape with a single thriving industry: Medical Aid in Dying.

Illness, poverty, loneliness and resignation draw participants from around the country to facilitate their ends in the beach community’s Elea Clinic. Amidst the matte hues and decayed designs of the Mid-Century Modern aesthetic, an unlikely bond forms among Maya, elderly widow Alice, frustrated farmer Marvin and middle-aged disappointment Glenn, each brought to Wildwood by secrets and circumstance.

The currents of failed experiments, frayed connections and flawed decisions carry the foursome’s individual stories toward resolutions, all mixing with one another in a bracing commentary on the present and future.  

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“Wildwood captures a one-of-a-kind environment that both welcomes and unsettles, a waterfront community where decades of cultural, economic, and ethical influences have converged. The fast-paced yet richly detailed story stirs themes that spill beyond the beach town’s borders to touch almost every corner of modern life. Wildwood, at its heart, is devoted to the sad, fun, honest, and unmistakably human characters who stay with the reader long after the book’s conclusion.” 

                                                   --Caren Lissner, author of Carrie Pilby

“. . . Richly drawn, this is a beautiful rumination on all the things, good and bad, we leave behind.” --Kirkus Reviews

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 “Wildwood packs in a lot of full-bodied elements that leave readers pondering an incredibly interesting, futuristic-yet-realistic concept and thinking about how those around us, including those in power, will react to the future when it arrives.”

                                          --Independent Book Review