An EcoThriller from the Monterey Bay
“An environmental thriller in which a California teacher travels to a parallel world. . . plenty of action to keep things lively. . . consistently entertaining. . . a righteous quest.” — Kirkus Reviews
Ms. Aurora Bourne would do just about anything to protect her students from harm . . . even if it means going up against the most powerful corporation on the planet.
Contemporary fiction with elements of mystery, romance,
and an edge of magical realism.
#CliFi #ecothriller
A finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.
Recipe for FRUIT OF THE DEVIL: Mash together some strawberries and pesticides, a passionate teacher, a courageous priest, an ancient nature god, true love, wild sex, Native Americans, ghosts, migrant farmworkers, billionaire ranchers, gang bangers, surfers, and salmon. Stir it up in a National Marine Sanctuary. Serve with fine California wines. Season with murder, magic and mystery.
Now Available
online
Amazon . Barnes & Noble . Kobo . Smashwords . Apple Books . Paper Angel Press
and in local bookstores
Bookshop Santa Cruz, Kelly’s Crossroads Books in Watsonville, Two Birds Books at Pleasure Point,
River House Books in Carmel, Book Passage in Corte Madera, Vroman’s in Pasadena, Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix, Books Inc. “The West’s Oldest Independent Bookseller”
and your local bookstores and library. (If you don’t see it, please ask.)
Support your INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES
Fruit of the Devil
From the exclusive golf courses of Pebble Beach to the world famous surf breaks of Santa Cruz and the fertile lands of Steinbeck country, Fruit of the Devil uncovers the hidden underbelly of California agriculture and tells a story of love, greed, murder, and redemption.
“This is definitely a story that needs to be told; a clear and poignant example of the economic age that we live in, in which corporate profits are more important than human and environmental health and well-being.” Dr. Ann López, Director Center for Farmworker Families
FRUIT OF THE DEVIL was inspired by a true David and Goliath story about corporations poisoning school children with pesticides, and the parents and teachers fighting to protect their children, their food and water, and a priceless natural environment. It’s the story of everyday people transformed into passionate activists by an environmental threat to their community . . . and it’s not over yet! (See the teachers’ SASS Facebook page for more.)
Fruit of the Devil delivers the flavors of The Outlander and Tortilla Curtain, with nonfiction overtones of Erin Brockovich and a speculative edge evocative of Shape of Water.
* * * *
Mary’s first published novel, Fruit of the Devil, was released by Paper Angel Press on October 15, 2019. In 2014, an early draft of Fruit of the Devil, was selected as a finalist in both the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association writing competition and the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, established by Barbara Kingsolver—one of the authors Mary most admires.
To learn more about Fruit of the Devil, see About the Novel . For an inside look at the progress of the novel, from concept to publication, and a deeper exploration of the novel’s thematic threads, follow the Wild Strawberries Blog Posts. Also see Mary’s Author Statement on the dropdown menu of the About the Novel page.
STORY SUMMARY
Ms. Aurora Bourne would do just about anything to protect her students from harm . . . even if it means going up against the most powerful corporation on the planet.
While getting her fourth grade classroom ready for Fall, Aurora feels sick, and it’s more than back-to-school blues. Outside her windows next to the playground, strawberry fields have just been fumigated and pesticides are drifting into the classrooms, causing serious health issues for adults and children. When the teenage sister of a migrant student goes missing from the strawberry fields, it becomes clear that pesticide poisoning isn’t the only thing threatening the children’s safety, and Aurora begins to understand why farmworkers call strawberries Fruta del Diablo, Fruit of the Devil.
Aurora starts asking questions and gets caught in a web of gangs, trafficking, and high-level corporate crime. When a Catholic priest comes to her aid, she falls in love with him, complicating her life further. She has no idea he’s actually an ancient nature god out of Pacific Coast indigenous legends.
* * * *
FREE NOVELLA
*** pdf of my novella, The Game Warden ***
a Kelli Cavanaugh story, adapted from Fruit of the Devil,
Leave your email in the FREE DOWNLOAD form
on the right side of this page (or below in mobile) and I’ll send you a link, or download the digital edition from my publisher’s website.
PODCASTS!
Listen to Mary’s Author Interviews:
Planet Watch Radio Podcast
Talk of the Bay Interview with Rachel Goodman on KSQD Community Radio
Interview with Michael Olson on KSCO Food Chain Radio Podcast
Methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting chemical, a potent greenhouse gas, and a deadly pesticide widely used as a soil fumigant in strawberry production was banned in 1987 by the International Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the California Birth Defects Prevention Act. For nearly 30 years after it was banned under a legally binding international treaty, the federal government granted annual “critical exemptions” to methyl bromide distributors and agriculture lobbyists, allowing continued use of the fumigant and relentlessly pushing back the “final” phase-out date to the year 2000 and beyond. Finally, as of 2017, methyl bromide was {mostly} no longer available to fruit growers. However, the use of many other class-1 acutely toxic pesticides on the strawberry fields of Central California continues to be a hotly debated topic in the multi-billion dollar world of California agriculture.
Multinational chemical corporations (fossil fuels, pesticides, big pharma . . . all linked through a chain of shared CEOs and holding companies) continue to block our much-needed transition to a food and agriculture system that can sustain us through the Anthropocene. Pesticides currently used in agricultural fields next to our schools have been linked to asthma, cancer, and autism spectrum disorders. (See the UC Berkeley CHAMACOS Study for more.) Find out what’s in that beautiful strawberry before you take your next bite of Fruit of the Devil, and why it’s so urgent that we transition quickly to a sustainable food system.
For an in-depth study of the politics, economics, and natural history of this issue, see Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry available August, 2109 by Dr. Julie Guthman, Guggenheim Fellow and UCSC professor of Social Science , and also Professor Dvera Saxton’s book, The Devil’s Fruit: Farmworkers, Health, and Environmental Justice, which utilizes ethnographic and activist methods to address farmworker health concerns about pesticides and other layered disparities and injustices.
Are YOU involved in or concerned about an environmental or social justice issue in your community? Tell your story! We’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to comment here, or on any of the Wild Strawberries Blog Posts.
Whether you want to Be the Change, or you’re looking for your next Book Club read, or just want to kick back with an entertaining page-turner, check out Fruit of the Devil.
For every community fighting against environmental harm and social injustice inflicted by greedy corporations and corrupt power-brokers—from Flint, Michigan to the burning Amazon Rainforest; from Paradise, California to communities under water because of fossil fuel-powered climate change, and all of us who grieve over NRA -funded mass shootings . . .
Please help us get the word out!
Want to Help Make the World More Beautiful? Join Us!
For updates on sales, appearances, and news about Mary and her book’s journey, add your email in the Subscribe Box.
Send a Comment ~ We look forward to hearing from you!
Hi Mary,
So happy you persisted!!!
Pingback: Meet Mary Flodin – Nancy Wood
Pingback: Pesticides Out of our Food Planet Watch Radio Podcast
Finally!! I’m really excited to read the published work! And, possibly get a signed copy?!
I was most privileged to have the opportunity to immerse myself in this riveting novel. There are rare stories that surround you and pull you in as this novel did for me. I literally could not put it down. Mary’s gift for description of nature is so expressive and flowing that it was like watching a film, yet capturing the subtle smells . The characters are so alive that I immediately cared to know more of what could unfold.
Mary touches on the most challenging and difficult issues of our time in ways that are truthful and compelling. At the same time the mystical quality enhances the experience so that we travel beyond the surface appearances . She contributes powerfully to awareness and with a compassionate eye to what is unfolding on so many levels at once. I feel enriched by this work. Thank you Mary for listening in your soulful way and being faithful and courageous in recording all of this. May this novel find its way to many eager hands and hearts.
Thank you so much, Lily, for being one of my “early readers”. It’s very exciting to put the manuscript in the hands of friends and to get their feedback. Writing this novel has been a long and sometimes discouraging process. I’m encouraged by your comments! Love, Mary
Mary – thanks for the invitation to share thoughts here; I’ve been needing a place to express my thoughts about climate change and why we have deniers. Humans are affecting the climate because we are doing extreme things: we are taking enormous amounts of oil, coal, and natural gas out of the ground and combusting them. I believe that most of us [at least in the US] cannot fathom the magnitude of this; the human brain can’t grasp those large quantities. When so much carbon stuff is combusted, there’s no way it CAN’T affect the planet’s atmosphere and climate. I think this is why so many people deny climate change; they don’t understand the magnitude of what comes out of the ground and gets transported, processed, and burned. Couple this with people being generally intimidated by and fearful of science, and it’s disaster. The new President of France invites US scientists to come to France to continue studying and combatting climate change!
This will be an explosive novel. We are all waiting to see it published!
Hi Mary, I am a Watsonville “farm girl” who ate those recently sprayed fields. I have had breast cancer, my brother, sister and I have had other cancers as well as pre-colon cancers. My horse, “Queenie” died the day after eating lettuce recently sprayed in our neighbors field.
So, were raised during spraying and never told when or when it was not safe to go sneak into the field and eat a fresh head of lettuce.
Can’t wait to read it…. Signed A Watsonville Native, Kary Herman who is now your neighbor….
Thank you so much for the comment, Kary. It’s not at all easy to talk about these things. That’s probably part of why the pesticide companies can keep poisoning us – they bank on the fact that people don’t want to talk about what’s happening to them. But united together, we can fight this giant. Much love to you, heroic woman. Mary.
“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Hi Mary,
It as great meeting you at the new Olive Connection in APTOS!! Hope to see you again sometime and I look forward to the launch of your book!!!
Susan
Very glad to meet U at Yurtfest! Like your site, w check out your book, asap. Let’s keep in touch. Bye, for now.:-)
Love your blog! Great content about good food.
Greetings from one of the West Cliff denizens. The sun should be setting over the water again soon, see you there for those magnificent sunsets and maybe even a green flash.
Greg
I can’t wait to read it!!! (I sure hope it has a happy ending… we live on the edge of those very fields.) Most in our neighborhood eat organic!
I have read your blog and really like the content, keep up the posts as I will be back.
Hi Mary,
I enjoyed meeting you and exchanging some ideas with you. I am very interested in reading your book.
I would appreciate it if you could send me a chapter and an email address, and I
will reciprocate.
I look forward to seeing you at the next SVRWA meeting.
I like long novels. Perhaps I need to read your entire manuscript to give you more comprehensive feedback. All the technical/factual information you presented in the early chapters was excellent, yet too concentrated. It didn’t allow the story to breath. That’s why I was hesitant to say, “Cut this, trim that.” Since you have a deep feeling for the land, as do I, you might want to incorporate yourself more fully into one of the characters, have her be your voice. Then, instead of putting the emphasis on the ecological facts, you put real feeling into her FEELING FOR THE LAND, her deep concern about the way science/growers are toxifying the land, her concern about future generations.
As for me, I am seeing a kind of “Mafiazation” of American society taking place, a distinct move toward the right, which technology fosters, accidentally perhaps. I see increasing subtle ways ofcheating taking place, incredible greed. A T & T is one example. I won’t go on.
I know about ERin Brokovich, but not the other two women, so part of your description was lost on me. Could you share more about the actual process of writing your story? In this blog, you give a great overview. At the same time, I would love hearing about the struggles/tricks/perservance you are going through, week by week. Would you consider sharing a particularly jolting sentence of paragraph? I like this one from Deepak Chopra: “One time a man died because of something I said to him.” appreciatively, Chuck
Hi Mary! I didn’t know you have a blog. Not that I’ll post very often because these days I’m doing all I can to stay OFF of the inter-tubes (that sucking sound you hear is all of your free time vanishing into the computer …). But, still, I’ll bookmark it and visit now and again anyhow. (Hope all’s well otherwise in S.C.).