But Not For Long: A Novel

Hard-shelled, career-minded Greta is the newest and least likely member of a sustainable-foods cooperative house in Madison, Wisconsin. At a stately, crumbling residence on Lake Monona, Greta joins thirty-something Hal, an employee at a nonprofit, and much younger Karin, a reporter for a local newspaper. Shortly after Greta arrives, the husband she left appears on the co-op’s porch, drunk, and the reason for her sudden appearance becomes clear. Yet the house members already have plenty to occupy them: an early-morning incident at the lake and a series of summer blackouts and gas shortages have unearthed a disquietude lurking just under the surface for each of the three residents. Hal’s nonprofit is foundering and his father has ceased communications with him and his sisters. Karin is struggling to imagine her own future family: A baby? A co-op full of companions? Or no one at all? But as the blackout spreads, the co-op members are forced out of their insular house and into the larger community. Greta, her husband Will, Karin, and Hal try to steer their everyday lives through an extraordinary time. In a novel that is swift, slyly funny, and rich in atmosphere, But Not for Long reveals how a few tense days inside a small community show us who we are.

Praise for But Not For Long:

“...the tone is so far from didactic, and the characters are so skillfully developed, that it succeeds. The third-person narrative dwells equally on the three members of a housing co-op: Hal, a vegetarian who works at a hunger-relief nonprofit; Karin, an athletic writer for a trade magazine about cheese; and the weary Greta, who has moved to the co-op to escape her alcoholic husband. The characters are no-nonsense, practical, Midwestern. Karin, visiting a dairy farm to avoid the blackout, reflects that sheep, with their “oily, strong-smelling fleece,” were “better from a distance.” Goats, however, “ate well and gave a lot of milk, and good goat cheese was always as chic as a little black dress.” Meanwhile, Greta’s drunkard husband begins to go through the agonizing process, vividly conveyed, of getting clean — a metaphor for our society kicking its destructive addictions. What if the apocalypse comes gently, this memorable book asks, not with a bang or a blaze but with the silence of refrigerators no longer buzzing and the “fuzzy dandelions of candlelight floating past the curtains”?"

—The New York Times

“An evocative look at the green movement that includes improbably interesting passages on everything from artisanal cheese caves to the joys of hunting for morels in a damp forest, But Not For Long is also a stirring meditation on modern angst and the meaning of selflessness.”

—People Magazine

“Sensitively conceived and crafted...Acceptance, adaptation, even redemption seem possible.”

—Boston Globe

“Amid a worsening recession—where gas is largely unavailable and the entire city loses power—the housemates each struggle with personal crises, and an investigation into a possible drowning at the nearby lake only increases the sense of impending doom. Hal's mother recently died and he worries about a drop in food donations to the SWFI; Karin is threatened by Greta's arrival, fearing it will disrupt her platonic relationship with Hal; and Greta struggles to distance herself from her husband, Will. Wildgen skillfully shifts between the key players, focusing simultaneously on social and interpersonal issues. With its open-ended conclusion, the novel allows the characters' lives to resonate beyond the final page.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The cold emptiness of the not-quite ghost town gets its best rendition from Michelle Wildgen in But Not for Long...The book opens, eerily and beautifully, with a drifting dock in the lake behind the co-op and a dog abandoned alone on it. Each of these signs and events are just hints, backdrops for Wildgen’s meaty, vibrant characters and their personal crises... These stories are well and sensitively told, and Greta, especially, shows off Wildgen’s talent for complexity and ambiguity. The end of the book belongs to Will. He doesn't wrap up the plot, or tie down loose ends; instead, with no less realism or grace than in the rest of the novel, his narration shifts the focus and draws together the resonances Wildgen has set up, through the blackout and the hints of catastrophe. They resolve into something like a chord, entirely through implication, in an amazingly unobtrusive virtuoso display.”

—Philadelphia City Paper

“Monday morning starts off fairly normal for Greta, Hal, and Karin, the three residents in the Morrison Street sustainable food co-operative in Madison, Wisconsin. But in no time Hal is frantically trying to get ahold of his father, who lives in the north woods, after not hearing from him for weeks. Greta’s alcoholic husband, whom she came to the co-op to avoid, is sleeping on the front porch; and Karin has rescued a dog from the lake and nobody can find its owner. Plus the power grid has fizzled out, leaving most of the southern half of the state in perpetual darkness. These upsets and changes slowly reveal the anxieties and worries that each roommate had thought they kept hidden, and Hal, Karin, and Greta must help each other either deal with their issues or sweep them back under the rug. Wildgen’s second novel is an engaging story with truly interesting and realistic characters the reader will care about.”

—Booklist

“Wildgen deftly intertwines environmental themes with her characters’ emotional searches, and the result is a multi-layered story that feels relevant without becoming overly sentimental or political. Wildgen’s last book was acclaimed by critics, and But Not for Long should equally be praised for its well-wrought portrait of those navigating a world that seems to be crumbling around them.”

—Bookslut

“A dog floats across a lake on an unhooked dock, barking and pacing. This is the uncertain, somewhat mysterious image on which Michelle Wildgen’s second novel, But Not for Long, opens. The dog initiates a small crisis in a lakefront community in Madison, Wisconsin, as neighbors emerge into the early morning to postulate to one another where the dog came from, how it got out there, and how it can be helped. The crowd has time to run through a number of grim scenarios before the dog takes the initiative and tries to swim to shore. Not to draw too direct a line here, but the main characters in this novel are in much the same situation as the stranded dog. Hal, Greta, and Karin are co-op housemates, each in their own way adrift, a refugee from another life. Hal returned to Wisconsin after following an ill-fated relationship to Brooklyn; Karin is trying to make a clean break from a listless childhood in a trailer park and an uninspiring stint in a Womyn’s Co-op; and Greta is attempting to start over, away from her alcoholic husband. In clear, precise prose, Wildgen tracks this process of restarting, adjusting, and refreshing.”

—The Rumpus

“In her new novel, But Not for Long, Michelle Wildgen’s clear, intelligent narrative voice conjures a viscerally recognizable world gone scarily askew. The novel’s various crises, personal and societal, play out poignantly and dramatically in the lives of three fully realized, deeply sympathetic protagonists.”

—Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man and Trouble

“But Not for Long is an utterly enthralling and unforgettable read. In this wise novel, Michelle Wildgen explores the inescapability of the past and the nuanced complexities of love and addiction. Her characters are vulnerable and funny and so beautifully human, and her prose illuminates those places in the heart where we seek shelter as the darkness falls over us.”

—Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Corpus Christi: Stories

“In But Not for Long, Michelle Wildgen has once again created complex characters overflowing with believable emotions. Her depiction of the relationship between the competent but angry Greta and her alcoholic husband, Will, may be the saddest, truest thing I’ve read in the last decade. Greta, Hal, and Karin—the three morally anxious members of a cooperative house in Madison, Wisconsin—felt so real to me as they grappled with a blackout that I was surprised to set down the book and realize they weren’t sitting in my living room, ready to continue the conversation. Michelle’s writing and her deep insight into the human condition are as startling and brilliant as the moment when the lights come back on.”

—Natalie Danford, author of Inheritance and series editor of Best New American Voices

“Everything a novel should be—meditative, wise, gorgeously written, as piercing in its humor as it is searing in its insight. Michelle Wildgen has crafted a dramatic cautionary tale of the damage humans inflict on their worlds . . . a prismatic, textured, and startlingly visceral glimpse into the heart of what it means to be human: What it is to cook, feed, eat, fight, fear, and love. What it is to try, and to fail, and—finally, hopefully—to survive.”

—Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Painter from Shanghai

You're Not You: A Novel

Now available in paperback

College student Bec is self-conscious of her aimless life; she has fallen into an affair with a married professor and a major she has no interest in. In a half-hearted effort to redeem herself, she answers an ad for a caregiver and finds herself employed by Kate, a wealthy, happily married woman with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Their relationship develops into a surprising intimacy, and as she observes the implacable changes in Kate her own life takes shape in ways she didn't anticipate. Vibrant and sensuous, this is a fiercely unsentimental yet poignant novel.

Praise for You’re Not You

“Wildgen writes with a fresh, appealing honesty and has done a marvelous job of capturing that youthful moment in our lives when we are like sponges ready to soak up someone else’s character, taste and charm, borrowed elements from which we hope to concoct an authentic, individual self.”

—Francine Prose, People Magazine, Critic’s Choice, 4 stars

“...You’re Not You, by the astonishingly gifted debut novelist Michelle Wildgen, is a complex and satisfying dish: a story of intimate strangers and their impact on each other’s lives. What makes this novel so enticing is the smartly self-mocking young narrator, Bec, and the lovely, unlucky Kate.”

—Cathleen Medwick, O Magazine

“Wildgen eschews the cliché, and instead provides us with a psychologically acute and complex tale of a young woman who begins to learns, under emotionally difficult circumstances, who she is and what she wants to be. This is one of those first novels that makes you want to reach out to the writer and say, hurry up and write: I want to read your second novel.”

—Nancy Pearl, Seattle NPR

"So skillfully rendered it’s hard to believe it is a first novel. I simply couldn’t put this book down.

—Whitney Otto, author of How to Make an American Quilt

"In Michelle Wildgen’s auspicious debut, You’re Not You, a young caregiver falls under the sensual spell of her charge.

—Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

"Wildgen is after something less treacly and more complicated. Bec makes progress—and mistakes. Kate suffers, but she’s no saint... it’s no less a manly man than Raymond Carver... who comes to mind when Bec cooks without Kate’s tutelage.

—Jennifer Weiner, Elle

"Wildgen writes with lush, fierce clarity about the most private and complex of matters... Startling and smart, a wise, beautiful novel.

—Nancy Reisman, author of The First Desire

"A deeply sensual book, a sort of Natural History of the Senses for foodies. ...There is much in this world to savor, Wildgen suggests.

—Lara Tupper, The Believer

"Every year has its first-time author stars, and Wildgen looks to land among them.

—Tampa Tribune

"A remarkably accomplished first novel

—Toronto Sun

"...Clear and determined, daring to spotlight an almost taboo subject—the need for sex among the sick. ...Wildgen's debut showcases the talent that won her inclusion in Best New American Voices 2004, and should take her further still.

—Publishers Weekly

"An intriguing look at caregiving and the emotional risks and rewards that each person takes and receives. With the help of the well-developed and believable characters, readers become immersed in the story, which makes for a very satisfying read.

—Library Journal

"...[a] fresh, accomplished first novel. Wildgen's attention to detail demonstrates impressive maturity and skill. No cheap tear-jerker here, but a novel that tackles challenging material with honesty and a clear eye.

—Kirkus Reviews

"She has a pitch-perfect way with detail, allowing the small gestures and words of a character to illuminate the story.

—Akron Beacon Journal

Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast

Michelle Wildgen, Editor

Food and Booze celebrates seven years of delicious writing culled from Tin House’s “Readable Feast” and “Blithe Spirit” departments. The pieces, contributed by some of the finest fiction and nonfiction writers working today, range from the humorous to the lyrical, recipes to rhapsodies, the historic to the personal, and from humble to haute cuisine. All share one common feature: the superb writing readers have come to expect from the magazine, the only literary journal with its own martini recipe.

Praise for Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast

“a witty and whimsical literary buffet”

—Variety

“This strange, dark, proudly literate collection is a triumph of unapologetic debauchery—after so much prudish, hothouse food writing, Food & Booze is as refreshing as an ice-cold Tin House Martini.”

—Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia, 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen