THE TERRANAUTS by T.C. Boyle

Anything can happen, and does, when you put four men and four women in a giant terrarium, called an Ecosphere, with the media and the public keeping apprised of their activities.  This human experiment, as a dry run for populating Mars, did actually take place in the 1990s but fizzled.  In Boyle’s reimagining, the eight terranauts face overheating, under-oxygenating, and intense personal disagreements as they share an enclosed world, complete with livestock, agriculture, wild animals, and a small ocean.  Three first-person narrators carry the story.  Ramsay and Dawn are among the eight selected to spend two years in the Ecosphere, and Linda, who is best friends with Dawn, remains on the outside, working toward making the cut for the next group.  Having a narrator like Linda who is not a part of the experiment might seem like a bad idea, but her role entails gathering dirt on Ramsay’s and Dawn’s ex-lovers, along with other assorted gossip, which she may or may not pass along.  At first she is Dawn’s champion, or least tries to be, but Dawn makes some decisions that cause Linda’s attitude to deteriorate and devolve into bitterness and jealousy.  Even as she contemplates how to get even, Linda quotes her Korean grandfather as saying, “Before you set out for revenge, be sure to dig two graves.”  I love that!  Linda definitely does not exhibit the qualities that would make her a good fit for this experiment, but Dawn, who is perhaps more adamant than anyone other than Ramsay that they not “break closure,” is the one whose actions continually require spin control.  This book is full of surprises, and at each juncture I couldn’t wait to find out what the impact would be.