THE GHOST OF DANNY MCGEE
by Quinlan Grim
A high-tech, remote summer camp provides the setting for two women’s explorations of their humanity in Grim’s debut SF novel.
The mysterious, mountainous Camp Phoenix is open for the season with a high-priced, exclusive program that offers the chance for the superrich to experience a summer as children again. Proprietary technology transfers each adult’s consciousness into an ultimately disposable clone of themself as a child with no memory of their future life; each camper chooses their age prior to arrival. Among this year’s campers is middle-aged Logan Adler, who attends with her husband, Max Gill, as 12-year-olds in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. On the other side of camp, 20-year-old Sam is returning for a second stint as a counselor, leaving her life in Paris behind along with her misgivings about her previous Camp Phoenix experience. As Logan navigates puberty and new friendships, she develops a crush on the wrong boy—someone who stands accused of a crime as an adult, outside camp. Meanwhile, Sam experiences her own ups and downs as a counselor but receives more responsibility from higher-ups. As she gains more knowledge about the ins and outs of what they do there, she starts to question not only the morality of her work, but also the boundary between reality and illusion. Grim’s novel is mostly a quiet, slow-moving reflection on second chances, the ethics of cloning, the privileges of the rich, and what it means to be human. The story’s perspective alternates between that of Sam and Logan, exploring the experiences of the campers and the counselors, by turns. There’s a tinge of unreliability to their narration that gives the tale a compelling, evocative, and uneasy feel. The author also cleverly weaves in the ever changing story of a ghost who supposedly haunts the camp—the eponymous Danny McGee—adding an extra layer to the story in which everybody’s repeatedly told to “Stay on the trails.”
Quietly insightful speculative fiction that will appeal to fans of Westworld and Black Mirror.