Publisher: Mill City Press (April 15, 2014)
Category: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, Political Thriller, Medical Thriller
ISBN: 13: 978-1-62652-760-7
Tour Dates: June 15-July 30, 2014
Available in: Print and ebook, 383 Pages
Category: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, Political Thriller, Medical Thriller
ISBN: 13: 978-1-62652-760-7
Tour Dates: June 15-July 30, 2014
Available in: Print and ebook, 383 Pages
Isolation depicts a bleak but recognizable future in which the fear of contagion reaches a fever pitch as a bacterial epidemic catapults the US into an apocalyptic crisis.
Touch is outlawed. Mothers like Maggie bind their infants’ hands, terrified they might slip fingers into mouths. Gary, a Sterilizer, uses robots to scour the infected, avoiding all contact with human flesh. Trevor, the Chief Enforcer, watches, eager to report any and all infractions.
One inadvertent touch will change all of their lives.
Praise for Isolation:
“I was fortunate enough to read a preview copy of Isolation and I have to say it is a timely and thought provoking, if not haunting, look into the future. I can’t imagine simple day-to-day tasks like getting food at the market being either impossible or dangerous. Written from a variety of perspectives and far-reaching communities, it kept the reader wondering, “Could this really happen to me? Could this be part of my world?” This book made me look into the foods I eat, the lifestyle I live and the value of my friends and family. To what extent would I go to keep those I love safe? Looking for answers kept me turning the pages.”- Michelle Keeton
“Denise Stephenson’s novel Isolation is situated in a not-too-distant future, one we can all imagine, in which bacterial diseases decimate human populations world-wide. Though other novelists and filmmakers have relied on viruses to frighten us with tales of pandemic diseases, Stephenson makes bacteria seem much, much more dangerous—in part, because the vast majority of bacteria we come in contact with are necessary for our survival. For one thing, we can’t digest food without the help of bacteria in our stomachs.
In Isolation, government agencies struggle with the question of how to isolate the dangerous bacteria from the life-saving sort. Eventually, hospitals are turned into Anti-Bacterial Centers, robots are used to cleanse individuals who are exposed, touching one’s face is banned, then touching others is banned, and finally everyone is quarantined inside their own homes in a final, desperate attempt to stop the spread of the lethal bacteria. It’s a frightening vision, but each step, each decision, makes perfect sense in light of the threat of contagion.
It’s a gripping tale, at once outrageous and yet plausible. Through news articles, a scientific report and a press release inserted throughout the novel, Stephenson reveals how woefully unprepared American society is for this sort of calamity.
In spite of the doomsday vision the book presents, it remains hopeful and optimistic by focusing on the lives of individuals. In the direst of circumstances, their humanity, their compassion, and their hope shines through.”- Bob Mayberry
“Isolation” paints a bleak picture. In order to keep humankind safe, the government imposes increasingly stricter bans on touching. From Do-not-touch one’s own nose and eyes to, in the end, the Total-Touch-Ban. People live in ever more isolation; at times, confined to their homes like prisoners.
While the prospect of living in, or even reading, about such a world may not sound appealing to everyone, Stephenson’s lovingly created characters, who accompany the reader from the present to a future two to three generations away, confirm that our species can adapt and survive.
Stephenson’s care to give each of her main characters a distinctive voice makes, in turn, the reader care about them; and that is what makes “Isolation” a pleasure to read.”- Irene Gerold
“Isolation gripped me. It’s a mesmerizing dystopia about the quiet and deadly menaces in our lives. These dangers may be hidden in the jargon of the latest government health report, lurking under the frilly curl of a romaine lettuce leaf, or triggered by a minor cut to a finger while using an ordinary kitchen knife. The characters in Isolation are people I know. It was easy to imagine myself as a sister, friend, or neighbor to any of them – or most of them.
I was in the story wondering, “What would I crave? What would I do for my family and my friends? Isolated, what could I do to fight back?” These questions linger.
The story is well paced, well written, and scary. Stephenson’s research is excellent. It provides a persuasive foundation for explaining why the home-bound isolation of the population becomes the awful solution for stopping the spread of disease. The story compelled me to mull my complacency about the safety of our food, drugs, and government promises to always protect our freedom.“- Karen Baum
About Denise R. Stephenson:
DENISE R. STEPHENSON resides in Oceanside, CA, but she has lived in all the isolated locales of this novel at one time or another. Her publishing history is primarily academic, though as a member of Attention Deficit Drama, she has written and produced monologs and short plays. This is her first novel.
Website: http://denisestephenson.com/
Tell us your latest news?
When and why did you begin writing?
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
What inspired you to write your first book?
Do you have a specific writing style?
How did you come up with the title?
Interview
Where are you from?
Honestly, I’m
from all of the places in my novel, though ironically, my home state of Iowa
only gets mentioned in news articles. I live in southern California currently,
but I’ve
lived in West Virginia, Michigan, Alaska …
Tell us your latest news?
I just got my first royalty check for Isolation.
While it wasn’t big, it was the most
exciting piece of snail mail I’ve
received in ages!
When and why did you begin writing?
Those are tough questions. In one way, I’ve
been writing all of my life. I remember as a teenager plotting stories with my
best friend, Brenda. We plotted more than we wrote, but we were always plotting
something. I think our parents would say we plotted more than story-lines as
often as we got into trouble.
But I’ve
been writing seriously since graduate school. Much of my writing has been
academic. In Michigan for our small theatre troupe Attention Deficit Drama, I
started writing monologs in the late 90s. From there I progressed to short
fiction and a sabbatical led me to the longer form of the novel.
Why do I write? Because I hear voices is one truthful
answer non-writers tend not to believe. Because I’ve
been an over-observer all of my life, which means I’ve been
gathering the details that make characters come alive. Because I love movies
and fiction that aren’t linear and am
challenged to create structures which aren’t
plot-driven. Because it clears my mind. I won’t say
because I have to, but as you can see from this short list, I have many reasons
for writing.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think my first academic publication, which was an
interwoven text of block quotes, paragraphs of questions, and short vignettes,
made me feel like a writer. I still have extra copies of Transformations
somewhere in the garage. I stocked up as if I might never get published again.
I’ve
been directing college Writing Centers for two decades. In my first center, I
wasn’t
required to publish, but if I was going to have the credibility to do my job, I
believed I needed to be a writer. This perspective led to more than 20 academic
articles and chapters over the years; yet moving into fiction has made me call
myself a writer with much more confidence and certainly with more delight.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Three experiences came together and wouldn’t
leave me. The first was the fear of a global flu epidemic in the fall of 2009. The
second the massive campaigns created by the fearful CDC and WHO to teach people
to sleeve the sneeze,
catch the cough, and wash our hands with anti-bacterial sanitizers. I
knew we had some good bacteria and thought such products were over-kill,
literally and figuratively. And third, as so often happens, was a line that
came into my head, “And laying a finger
aside of his nose,” from
the Night Before Christmas. I imagined a small boy finding a copy in his
mother’s old
toys. For him, it was like pornography because he lived in a world where
touching one’s face was taboo. Those
three ideas kept circling around inside of me for a couple of years before I
could turn them into a novel.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I guess my style has as much to do with my love of
character-driven stories as it does with my desire for juxtaposition rather
than a single narrative line. Those two combine to challenge the conventions of
typical plots, while they also keep me interested to discover what will happen
next. I go about creating juxtaposition in what I think may be an unusual way
of writing stories and then intercutting them. I have a blog on the process I
call “Cutting Out Fish” which explains it in
some detail.
How did you come up with the title?
One day I was walking on the beach in Kauai talking on
my cell phone to a friend, and she asked what my working title was. Out of
nowhere, I said Isolation, and it stuck. Another friend in the
publishing industry later tried to convince me that Touch would have
been a better selling title because of its positive possibilities. A more
business-oriented writer would have made that shift, but for me the book has so
many kinds of isolation in it that it spoke so metaphorically and complexly I
couldn’t let
it go.
What would you like my readers to know?
I’d
like readers to know how difficult self-publishing is. I think there’s a
sense out there that indie-publishing gives writers lots of freedom, and it
does, but it also puts far more work on our shoulders. Right now we’re in
the middle of a paradigm shift from traditional publishing to indie-publishing.
In the process, lots of things are changing. It’s not
about which is better, but about the many differences among the alternatives.
At this stage, I’m telling people that it
was far easier to write the novel than to publish and promote it. That may
speak to where my own talents or delights live or to the amount of learning it’s
taken to publish. Would I do it again? Write yes, indie-publish maybe; time
will tell.
Buy Isolation:
My Review:
This book freaked me out a little bit. How could I not touch my face, or my baby? Human touch is so important to infants. This is definitely a world of nature and not nurture. The enforcer was not a job that I would want. Gary, the sterilizer, has to have OCD. In fact I think that all people that live in this world would have OCD. I liked that this could really happen. Once the immune system is weakened it only takes one germ to kill. This was a great read. I am giving this book a 4/5. I was given a copy to review, however all opinions are my own.
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