THE EMILYS

As New Englanders fall ill with a mysterious affliction, a small group tries to find a cause and a cure.

Having lost her job and the lease on her rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, Eve Yalen has moved back into her childhood home in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her two young kids, leaving behind her musician husband (who comes up on weekends) and most of her ambitions as a writer. Though she’s the daughter of a professor and a well-known novelist, Eve struggles to recognize her new life in the hippified atmosphere of small-town Northampton. But one day she runs into Demeter, a beloved friend from her girlhood. Demeter is in Northampton temporarily, seeking care for her daughter, who’s suffering from a mysterious illness that causes extreme photosensitivity. Demeter—free-spirited, brilliant, itinerant—gives Eve a chance to feel useful and, frankly, adventurous again. As Demeter and Eve desperately try to figure out what’s causing the girl’s illness, which doctors dismiss and authorities want to use as an excuse to remove her from Demeter’s custody, they learn that there’s a small community of others impacted by this illness, which some have dubbed “Emily’s disease” in homage to Emily Dickinson, the poet who famously stayed indoors. Bit by mysterious bit, the novel weaves in the perspectives of other people whose loved ones have been affected by “Sun Madness.” By shuffling through these figures’ stories and gradually bringing them together, Abel explores a rich tapestry of themes: the heartbreak and power of female friendship, the isolation that can exist at the heart of motherhood, class tensions, climate change, medical gaslighting, the Covid-19 pandemic, and much more. If this seems like a lot, it is, but Abel’s writing is never grim and the swirl of theme and plot and character is vibrant.

A labyrinthine and heartfelt look at the trials and triumphs of collective action.