Also by Carolyn Chute
The Beans of Egypt, Maine
Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts
Merry Men
Snow Man
The School on Heart’s Content Road
Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Chute
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
This title was typeset in 12-pt. Granjon LT with Bernhard Modern by Alpha Design and Composition of Pittsfield, NH.
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: February 2020
first edition
ISBN 978-0-8021-2951-2
eISBN 978-0-8021-2952-9
Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication-data is available for this title.
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
Author’s Note
The Recipe for Revolution is one of several novels that make up the School on Heart’s Content Road “four-ojilly,” a series of overlapping or parallel books that focus on different characters and their place in the story’s key events. Characters who play major roles in one or more of the books may be only walk-ons in others. Each book stands alone. No need to read them in a certain order.
Welcome
to
The
Recipe for
Revolution
. . . as told by many witnesses: friends, family, spies, agents, demons, critical thinkers, and other beings, testimonies verifying and conflicting, some voices very large, others somewhat tiny.
Author’s Note 2
There is a character list at the very back of this book to help with identifying important and semi-important characters. Don’t twist your head trying to keep every character straight. Continually referring to the list is not necessary. As you read along, eventually characters who are meant to matter a lot will become obvious. Others are walk-ons, walk-bys, faces in the crowd. I, myself, love character lists because I like to refresh myself on how characters look and how they might be related and associated. Maybe you do, too.
List of Icons
Home (the St. Onge Settlement)
The voice of Mammon
Neighbors
Out in the world
Claire and Bonnie Loo and other women who run things at the Settlement, usually speaking to us from the future
The Bureau
Others speaking from the future
The screen insists, scolds, grins, cajoles
Voice of Pirate Radio interrupts
The Apparatus speaks
Secret Agent Jane Meserve speaks
Voices of the Crude and Raw speak
History as it Happens*/ History (the past) and critical thinkers
The deepest voice speaks
Microorganisms speak
Deep State
Bruce Hummer speaks
Dear Reader
Cyberspace
Think tanks and tin hat conspiracy theorists
* History as it Happens are settlement-made books of “news” and illustrations.
Contents