A novel about family, scarcity, and what it means to sell out as the world ends.
The world hasn’t quite ended, but it’s getting there. Me and Mine imagines a not-so-distant future on the pre-apocalyptic shores of Lake Michigan. The West has dried up, the watershed has been contaminated, and water scarcity has driven most of the population inward from the coasts. Here, real estate interests run rampant and the possibility of snagging a house close enough to the Great Lakes to get fresh water has realigned global financial interests. And, as always, the working class is being pushed aside to make way for white and wealthy newcomers.
Amidst the chaos, three brothers try to navigate this swiftly changing landscape. As one seeks influence in politics, the younger two are drawn into the dangerous, shadowy world of private security and militias. In the precarious new world that these three brothers navigate, J. M. Holmes offers a grim yet familiar future in which scarcity fuels resentment, resentment sparks extremism, and extremism ignites around the racial tensions of our present.
What People Are Saying
“[Me and Mine] proceeds with unstoppable energy, cutting through its sprawling narrative with tangy dialogue, wide-ranging cultural and historical references, and stinging social commentary.” Kirkus
“I loved this novel, which looks dead-ass at the world and then expands, with a real tenderness, to hold it all, set a line, and keep moving. Me and Mine shows, in its very heart and with gravity, that the past is real and another world is possible.” Mairead Case, author of Tiny and See You in the Morning
“Class genocide and race war—we're soaking in it. Me and Mine is less a speculative thriller than a realist novel about the day after tomorrow. Detailed, savvy, and perhaps even a set of spoilers for what you'll experience when you wake up." Nick Mamatas, author of The Second Shooter and Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest
“Comparisons to Junot Díaz and Denis Johnson are perhaps inevitable, but I imagine they'll prove short-lived; in a few years we'll be comparing writers to J.M. Holmes.” Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers
“Spare in style, strikingly urgent, J.M. Holmes is a voice to get excited about.” Irenosen Okojie, author of Curandera
About the Author
J. M. Holmes was born in Denver and raised in Rhode Island. He is the winner of the Burnett Howe Prize for fiction, the Henfield prize for literature, and a Pushcart prize.