Camille is a keeper at the last zoo in the world, on Alcatraz Island. Reserved around humans, she is happy to spend her days caring for chimpanzees and tree frogs, and a magnificent, restless jaguar, while outside nature crumbles. Resistance groups and brutal cartels are fighting to shape the world's future, but Camille is safe within her routines.
Then a new zookeeper, Sailor, arrives. Glamorous and reckless, she seems to see something in Camille that no one has before. When Sailor whispers about a secret sanctuary where wild animals roam free, Camille begins to imagine a new kind of life, with Sailor by her side.
Sailor has a plan, and she wants Camille to be a part of it. Which means Camille must decide if she's ready to risk everything for the promise of a better world.
Propulsive and fiercely hopeful, with a heart-stopping final twist, The Island of Last Things is an elegy for a disappearing world, and a gorgeous vision for the future.
Emma Sloley began her career as a features editor at Harper's BAZAAR Australia. Now based in NYC, she is a freelance travel writer for international magazines. Emma has published fiction, short fiction, and creative nonfiction in Literary Hub, Catapult and other literary publications. Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she is a two-time MacDowell fellow, and Bread Loaf scholar. She is the author of Disaster's Children (2019). Visit her at www.emmasloley.com
'Sometimes a new author will sidle up and whisper in your ear, and sometimes she'll grab you by the neck. Emma Sloley is in the latter camp.' Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers
'Absorbing, daring, and ultimately hopeful, The Island of Last Things is at once a love letter to the natural world and a warning of what could become of us all if we let it whither.' Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, author of What We Fed To The Manticore
