The novel follows several intense summer days in Portland, Oregon, narrated by Claire Fererro, a thirty-something freelance political speechwriter whose professional and personal life are both in flux. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of a record-breaking heat wave, wildfire smoke, and mounting climate anxiety, using these pressures to explore intimacy and the shape of a meaningful life.
At the beginning of the story, Claire is unemployed, recently laid off from a communications job at a sneaker company, and scraping together freelance work. She lives alone in a rent-controlled apartment with her cat, Oprah, and feels acutely stalled compared to her older sister Claudia, who lives in New York with a husband and children. Claire is intelligent but also lonely and increasingly unsure whether her chosen path will ever solidify into something sustainable.
Claire’s immediate professional task is to write a Fourth of July speech for Stacia Lopez, an Oregon state representative who wants to go viral by addressing climate change in a way that will appeal to people outside the progressive “choir.” The assignment is unpaid and vague, and Claire struggles to find a new emotional angle that doesn’t sound like scolding. Climate change feels both omnipresent and strangely abstract, especially as the heat wave worsens and rumors of heat-related deaths circulate.
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