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 May 29, 2014 / Modified may 30, 2014 1:20 p.m.

Sound Fiction: Pills and Starships

Pulitzer-nominated author Lydia Millet reads from her new young adult science fiction novel, a dystopian portrait of a teen's struggle to make sense of her world.
by Mark McLemore

sound : fiction 617x347

pills and starships portrait Published by Akashic Books
lydia millet portrait Author Lydia Millet

This is Sound Fiction, a chance to enter the world of a short story or novel as read by the author.

Lydia Millet writes some books aimed at adults, and others for teens. Her characters are often smart but world-weary, their enthusiasm for life sliced thin by disappointment and tempered with dry humor.

In the young adult novel Pills & Starships Millet imagines a future world devastated by environmental disaster and pharmaceutical addiction.

The narrator, a teenager named Nat, has to endure a vacation retreat with her family that will culminate in her parents' own carefully planned, state-approved suicides.

To escape, Nat writes a journal, telling an imaginary future reader how it is that human beings came to have planned obsolescence, much like machines...

Listen:

Sound design by Mitchell Riley

pills and starships spotlight The striking cover image for "Pills and Starships", a young adult novel by Lydia Millet
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