ERADICATION

A man heads to a remote island to save the environment—or so he’s told.

Miles’ fourth novel, billed as a fable, is a slim but potent study of humanity in extremis. Its hero, Adi, is rudderless: His young son has recently died, prompting the end of his marriage, and he has a lackluster job teaching fourth-grade science. Seeking change and adventure, he connects with a peculiar foundation that recruits him to help revive the native species on a flyspeck tropical island called Santa Flora. Doing that requires the simple but gruesome task of killing the island’s invasive species, hordes of goats that have grazed the terrain barren. Early on, it’s clear that he’s not quite up to the task: He’s never used firearms, let alone the high-powered rifle he’s equipped with. (He wounds himself firing his first shot, the scope striking his head when the weapon recoils.) Disposing of goat corpses proves a messy, complicated business. And he has some intimidating company in the form of fishermen treading the waters to poach sharks for their fins. Miles’ observational skills are on fine display—the offbeat premise is fully convincing, thanks to precise details about the island’s flora and fauna, Adi’s equipment, and (in time) the full story of his family’s collapse. But the “fable” element of the story remains appealingly open-ended—the novel can be read as an allegory about contempt for immigrants, our propensity for violence, our relationship to the environment (and the harm we bring upon it), our need for connection, and more. However one reads it, Adi becomes a potent symbol of life in a fearful, desperate moment: “This, right here, was surely where he belonged: alone in the earth’s dungeon, clapped in irons for all his failures.”

A stark, propulsive, and timely man-versus-nature tale.