Excerpt from Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As she saw it, the opportunity presented by the Darvish farm was twofold. First was the fact of the land itself: one hundred and fifty-three good hectares in a town that was likely to remain deserted until at least the spring. None of Birnam's planting sites in the city offered anywhere near that kind of scope – Mira was constantly frustrated by their inability to produce at scale – and if they could just manage to get a season's worth of crops into the ground without getting caught, she thought, then the income they could generate might be enough, in and of itself, to give Birnam Wood a shot at solvency. Maybe Shelley could finally launch the subscription service that she had always talked about; or maybe they could put the funds towards their own expansion, reaching out to like-minded organisations perhaps, or registering as a charity, or maybe even paying for a spot of advertising to grow their client base, little though Mira liked that idea.

And if they did get caught – well, that also presented an interesting opportunity. Between the press coverage of the knighthood and the reporting on the landslide on the pass, Thorndike had been much in the public consciousness in recent months, and if Birnam Wood could stage a demonstration on the Darvish property, Mira thought – if they could arrange to be caught in the act of trespassing – if they could invite prosecution, even, for the alleged crime of planting a sustainable organic garden on an empty tract of land – and if they could then present to the media exactly what they'd planted, and explain their mission, and enumerate their goals, and prove themselves to be serious and good-hearted professionals whose work was tidy, and efficient, and fruitful, and thoughtful, and respectful of the land – would that not be a form of breaking good? They would risk criminal charges, of course, but at least they'd get their message out. And since Owen Darvish was to be knighted for services to conservation, at the very least they might provoke an interesting debate.

As she hunted through her chest of drawers for woollen socks and polypropylenes, she rehearsed in her mind the message she would send to Shelley. 'Hey,' she imagined writing, 'I've been getting the sense that you could do with a bit of space' – but that was too accusing. 'Hey,' she tried again, 'I figured you might appreciate a bit of time to yourself.' Too passive-aggressive? 'Hey, I thought we could both do with a bit of a break.' Inaccurate – and too cloying. 'Hey, I've been a bit worried lately that ...' 'Hey, I hope I haven't misread this, but ...' 'Hey, just to let you know ...' At last, zipping up her duffel bag, she settled on, 'Hey Shel. I'm going to get out of your hair for a few days. Reckon you deserve a break. Interesting possible site in Thorndike down south – looks like the town's emptied out post Korowai Pass closure which could be good for us. Breaking good?! I'll let you know ... anyway take care and see you in a bit x'. She typed it out, but hesitated over pressing send: better perhaps to wait until she was on her way out of town, in case Shelley texted back and asked to come along – for Mira had convinced herself that the only practicable course of action left to her was to go to Korowai alone. She saved the message as a draft and went outside to load the van.

Excerpted from Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. . Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2023 by Eleanor Catton. All rights reserved.