Summary

Mira Bunting, the 29-year-old founder of the environmental activist collective known as Birnam Wood, researched a property near Korowai Pass in New Zealand when she noticed the news of a deadly landslide in its vicinity. She became sidetracked when she discovered that the property’s owner, media darling Owen Darvish, would be knighted in three weeks for his environmental conservation efforts.

While Mira was researching, her best friend, Shelley Noakes, tracked her on her phone. Shelley considered her relationships with both Mira and her baby-boomer mother. She recalled her unhealthy relationship with Mira, remembering that she thought of Mira “with a fervour that approached infatuation, transforming herself…into a more perfect image of the person that Mira had told her she already was: more benighted, more repressed” (12). Shelley continued to reflect on their relationship, recognizing herself as “the sensible, dependable, predictable, sidekick” who...