Hilary Plum “Strawberry Fields”

Strawberry Fields is the winner of the 2018 Fence Modern Prize in Prose. This ambitious novel echoes real-world politics and takes an expansive view of corruption in a time of information overload and fake news.

As a multi-narrative, Strawberry Fields holds wide-ranging perspectives on a town poisoned by pesticides, phone-video journalism, the dogs of Occupy Wall Street, and much more. The only recurring narrator is Alice, a journalist with experience in the Middle East and in a hurricane-torn city that resembles New Orleans.

Investigating the mysterious deaths of five veterans, Alice teams up with Modigliani, a detective she first met when he saved her life in the field. He points her toward Xenith, a private military contractor, and the more Alice learns, the clearer it becomes that the corporation is not being held accountable for their abuses in war zones and on American soil. While Alice’s story builds, her chapters alternate with those of other characters, often media professionals, academics, and artists, each energizing the novel as they struggle to find out the truth.