“I Loved Every Minute I Spent Reading Heather Abel’s The Optimistic Decade”
Heather Abel’s novel, The Optimistic Decade, captures a place (a summer camp in Colorado) and a time (the 1990s) with insight, wisdom, and humor. And it has captured the attention and affection of readers and reviewers, who are loving this big and bold, thoughtful and delightful debut.
- “A perceptive writer whose astute observations keep the book funny and light even under the weight of its Big Ideas.” —The New York Times
- “I loved every minute I spent reading Heather Abel’s The Optimistic Decade, a sharply rendered portrait of the United States in 1990. . . an exuberant and nonjudgmental examination of the unique conflicts of the era.” —Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed Books
- “Funny and ruefully astute.” —People
- “A fresh and savvy first novel.” —BBC.com
With the back-to-the-land, utopia-aspiring camp Llamalo being so central to The Optimistic Decade, Heather also has written a couple of wonderful essays about her own camp experiences, including an encounter with Jane Fonda that helped her learn to forget and an encounter with a rattlesnake that helped her learn to lie/become a novelist.
Photo Credit: Heather Abel
(In the photo above, you can see Heather Abel in the center of the group with a blue headband, and Jane is the one in the back who is, you know, Jane Fonda.)
