The Nature of Things

Lydia Millet's book tells the story of twelve children - teenagers and some of their younger siblings - who are taken to a sprawling lakeside mansion for a summer vacation. The kids don't necessarily want to be there but nobody asked them, of course. The parents are a debauched lot who spend their time in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex. The kids are both neglected by their self-centered parents and suffocated by the parents' insistence on their being in this place all summer. They organize their lives and their time to be away from the parents as much as possible. Then an apocalyptic storm hits and everything changes.  The children have been thoroughly disgusted by their parents' behavior and now they decide that their best option is to run away. One of their number knows of a ten-bedroom house owned by his family that is apparently empty and where they might be able to find shelter from the apocalyptic chaos and so they head for it. They don't make it, however,...