The Book of Joan

Judging by a name I had never heard before, I assumed the author of this novel, Lidia Yuknavich, was from Eastern Europe and that the book had been translated. Turns out she is an American living in Oregon. At its simplest, The Book of Joan is a dystopian novel in which a ruined planet is abandoned by the wealthy who live in an orbiting station. Joan, a human savior figure, has tremendous and unexplained "superpowers" that derive from her connection to the soil. The author's prose, when it rings with clarity, is excellent. The messages, thinly veiled, warn of where the planet is heading both environmentally and politically. There is quite a bit more in the plot, but I'm not sure it was worth following down every rabbit hole. There is also a fair amount of gore, which was in fact refreshing.