A Camp Without Fire

A Camp Without Fire
Young Adult's Perspective of Life during the Great Recession in California

Marlene and Derek barely talked in high school. But now, seven years after graduation, they come into contact again thanks to the internet. He is an architecture student. She is stuck behind a desk. Both recently have broken up with their own first love and are desperate for meaning and perspective in life as they battle through their first challenges in adulthood.

With the Great Recession in full swing both try to cope with their financial troubles, try to move on and away from their own exes but seem unable and unwilling to do so. They stumble by making mistakes and trying to navigate this new thing called their mid-twenties.

Derek's sarcastic and naive personality and Marlene's brutal honesty and seemingly lack of empathy shed light on millenials' life during the Great Recession and provide a refreshing look into modern day California. And at the end, both are faced with life altering choices. Will they go down the same path that so many people have walked before or will they chose a new and distinct path?

This book is a Roman à Clef. It is a novelization of my life in my mid-twenties. I don't dare compare myself to Hemingway but I admired The Sun Also Rises and decided to write a novel based on my experiences in the hope of providing a fresh perspective on the traditional view of corporations and how we may avoid this problem in the future. It is an analysis and critique of the capitalistic system we have come to know and love. The up and downs of romantic relationships directly mirror those up and downs in our free market. But what can we do? How can we fix this system? How can we keep the romance and magic alive both in our lives and in our economy?

Although the intention is to make people think about life in the Great Recession it is not a book on economics. Far from it. This book is mainly a focus on millennials' life through the Great Recession and how they may cope with it.