A philosophical fable, Crocosmia centers on Maya as she recollects the "great turning"--a moment of radical social and ecological change effected in part by the art of her mother, Jane. As Maya recalls her upbringing--from a commune run by anarchist nuns to a time of rural isolation before her mother's disappearance--Mellis's prose gorgeously conjures a life defined by revolutionary thought and action and the interplay and tension between family life and political commitment. At once a fantasy, a handbook to political thought, and a work of eco-fiction, this lush novel meditates on how, in a world on the precipice, dreams of communal care can bloom.
