Book Review: ‘Cherish’
The grid goes down, but this is no ordinary power outage. It’s a cyberattack. The scope is hard to assess, but it’s clearly widespread — national, maybe even global. Help could be weeks or months away.
Will the community pull together in response to this emergency? Or will longstanding social and political divisions leave individuals, families and clusters of locals isolated and wary of one another in a time of universal need? “Cherish — Love in a Season of Loss,” a new novel by longtime Humboldter Mark Sommer, takes readers on an imaginative thought experiment that might all too soon become a reality. The next world war may not be one of blowing things up but shutting them down.
The setting is a small, central Iowa college town where, facing often harsh weather, fragile finances and failing crops, residents are self-reliant but there for one another when needed. Yet Acton, Iowa, isn’t immune to the divisions that have emerged elsewhere. The community is battered by eroding trust, disruptive technologies and disputed definitions of truth.
It’s a prescient story, visionary but pragmatic, both a novel and a set of resources to strengthen community resilience in an increasingly uncertain world. Told at the human scale, the consequences of cyberwar are seen through the eyes of farmer Ben and his daughter Alicia, a climate scientist at the local university. As the practical folks of Acton forge strategies for cooperation in growing food and rationing supplies, they learn how much they need one another.
“Cherish” is a complex portrayal of the best and worst of our human impulses during a protracted emergency. Acton’s residents must choose to thrive together or struggle and possibly perish alone.
Much of what Sommer describes is drawn from his own half-century experience here in Humboldt County, including living seven miles off-grid, using first-generation solar panels. This is an organic novel that Sommer will update periodically, meaning “Cherish” will be an ongoing chronicle of our times and our society.
Hear the author read from his book: Trinidad Library, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2 p.m.; Arcata Library, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2 p.m.; Garberville Library (live on KMUD), Wednesday, Aug. 26, 5-7 p.m.; McKinleyville Library, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 6 p.m.
Chuck Rogers, a 30-year Humboldt resident, worked with Mark Sommer at Mainstream Media Project in Arcata and now works for Lost Coast Communications in Eureka. Find “Cherish” at heartsbrokenopen.com.
