The Revivalists

August 1, 2022
Hood sets his stark and hopeful debut in the aftermath of a pandemic that has wiped out two-thirds of the planet’s population. Bill, a white psychologist, and Penelope, his Black financier wife, are living a placid life in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., when the shark flu, a deadly virus that emerged from Iceland’s melting permafrost, upends civilization and cuts them off from their daughter, Hannah, a college student in California. After Hannah contacts them by shortwave radio (the only form of long-distance communication left) to tell them she’s joined the Revival, a quasi-religious cult that demands renunciation of one’s family, Bill and Penelope trek across America’s decimated landscape to rescue her. Hood’s narrative follows the familiar pattern of many postapocalyptic narratives, with Bill and Penelope crossing the paths of a broad cross-section of fellow survivors in encounters both benign and dangerous. Though their near escapes often feel convenient, Hood offers wry commentary on the new social order (the government’s approving euphemism for looting, “Manage Existing Resources,” is still seen as looting when done by Black people), as well as enriching insights on the fault lines in Bill and Penelope’s marriage. As disaster fare, it’s run of the mill, but it works better as an affecting family drama. Agent: Henry Dunow. Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary.

September 15, 2022
Life as we know it has ended. Just a few years after COVID, the world's population is decimated by the "Shark Flu," leaving billions dead, phones and internet silent, and the power grid offline. New York empty nesters Bill and Penelope are "dippers" who survived the virus and now subsist on scavenged canned goods and their garden. White psychologist Bill is beginning to see patients again, while brilliant analyst Penelope, who is Black, hides at home. Into the hush of their existence crackles the voice of their daughter, Hannah, informing them over shortwave radio that she has joined the Revivalists, a cult in California that enfolds its members into an isolated collective. Bill and Penelope immediately decide to embark on a transcontinental journey fraught with risks in order to wrench her from the clutches of the group, encountering remnants of civilization and unimaginable dangers that test their resolve and marriage. Perfect for fans of post-apocalyptic fiction and reminiscent of Station Eleven, Hood's debut samples the full spectrum of human nature and is gripping from beginning to end.

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November 1, 2022
A fast-paced addition to the rapidly growing genre of the post-apocalyptic road novel. Bill and Penelope are among the fortunate few, in theory. Two-thirds of the population has succumbed to a "Shark Flu" pandemic, but they've just "dipped." Debut novelist Hood adroitly lays out his premise and explores the plague's aftermath. In their suburban-NYC enclave, the couple are well insulated. There are plenty of "Formerly Occupied Homes" from which to "Manage Existing Resources"; most survivors keep their distance at first, but the neighborly nonviolent order survives. Bill and Penelope plant a garden. Bill even reopens his psychology practice to survivors, who barter for the talking cure. But Bill and Penelope learn from their daughter in California via ham radio that she too has survived--and seems on the verge of joining a cult. They decide their only course, their manifest destiny as parents, is to go west. What follows is a familiar but often entertaining hellscape picaresque. Hood smartly makes the marriage the story's center, and some adventures/interludes--especially after they crash into a herd of cattle in Kansas, encounter roving lions (!), then find themselves in a picture-postcard town that's abandoned but for a lonely siren who wants Bill to impregnate her--show wit and playfulness. Elsewhere, though, predictability sets in, often in the form of a right-mindedness that Bill projects and that the world, his secret co-conspirator, reflects back at him. Penelope and Bill fool macho nitwits playing soldier and flee while their guards watch porn, escaping into the arms of a much more with-it feminist collective. They encounter a saintly Native American distributing medicine from an 18-wheeler, then a spectacularly cool and noble "BIPOC collective" that's holding the Rockies, maintaining a buffer against the conspiracy-theory nut-job racists (wittily, Hood essentially calls them QVC-Anon) who've occupied Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Hood offers an entertaining update of the western migration tale, with ATVs and Camaros for covered wagons.

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