THIRST

THIRST is the story of a young couple living in comfortable suburban surroundings whose world is turned upside down when a mysterious event causes the power to go out and all of the water to disappear.

Paul is driving home from work when a wall of flames flashes over the bridge he and his fellow commuters are making their way across. There are accidents, some minor and some serious, but realizing that something has gone very wrong, Paul leaves his car and begins to walk the distance to his house. On arrival, he finds that both the electricity and the water are off. While waiting for his wife to make her way home, he interacts with his neighbors, all of whom are trying to understand what's happening. Thrust together through frightening circumstances, an uneasiness takes over as night falls, and the heat begins to get to everyone and the water becomes more scarce. His wife arrives home rattled by what's happening and suggests they make their way to her parents, a distance they never would have contemplated walking to before, and without water seems ill-advised.

The novel takes place in the 72 hours that follow as they and their neighbors suffer increasingly from the heat and their thirst and their realization that no one is coming to help. When a stranger arrives in their neighborhood, a do-gooder carrying a jug of precious water, things begin to turn violent. Paul and Sophie are forced to confront their own humanity and what they are willing to do and sacrifice, in order to survive. Their circumstances force them to reveal things kept previously hidden and they must confront the choices they've made in the past.

Not your typical "apocalypse novel," this is a taut, intimate portrait of a young couple attempting to build a life together and what happens when all of their assumptions and security disappear. Theirs is a riveting tale that begs the question, what would you do?

Benjamin Warner has degrees from Cornell University and University of Wisconsin. He has received awards for his fiction writing, including the Arthur Lynn Andrews Award for fiction. He currently teaches at Towson University where he edits and publishes Visions and Voices, a literary magazine for the homeless community, and is a faculty adviser for Towson's Urban Farm, coordinating workshops on canning and beekeeping. He has also worked as a farmhand, a day laborer at a chicken processing plant, a strawberry picker and a bookstore clerk.