They Left One Tree

HONORABLE MENTION: THE 2022 PRISM PRIZE FOR CLIMATE LITERATURE. THE JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME. THE GAMBLE OF A LIFE.Five hundred years from now Earth's three billion citizens look up to their solar system after centuries of retreating from every environment on the planet. A hushed-up discovery too impossible to believe but too important to ignore sends astrobiology professor Jack Wilson away from his home in Chicago. Alone he undertakes a quiet journey through a landscape almost nobody has stepped in for centuries: the interior of North America. Success could rewrite history—the world's and his family's. Failure risks the lives of his friends including one he hasn't seen for a decade.