It's probably fair to say that Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, among many other books and essays, isn't recognized for his breezy sense of humor. With his debut novel, however, the cofounder of 350.org delivers a gentle satire for anyone wallowing in despondency in the toxic aftermath of the 2016 election.

Set during a winter when it's too hot for snow, Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance (Blue Rider Press, 2017) chronicles the adventures of 72-year-old Vern Barclay as he gathers a band of like-minded activists to run an underground podcast and engage in radical (if still nonviolent) direct action. 

After flooding a Walmart with sewage and waylaying a Coors truck to replace its contents with local brews, Vern and his co-conspirators propose a truly radical idea: that Vermont secede from the United States and become its own republic. The notion turns into a cause célèbre in the land of Ben & Jerry's, even as Vern and crew face threats of arrest and incarceration.

Climate change is no stranger to dystopian fiction, figuring as the nightmare scenario in such classics as Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. McKibben takes the opposite tack here, presenting a utopian vision soothing in positivity and sprightly in execution, if sometimes a little too obvious in its choice of targets. (Do we really need more jokes about Starbucks?)

At a time when it's easy to be pessimistic, Radio Free Vermont is an enjoyable salvo on behalf of the resistance.

This article appeared in the January/February 2018 edition with the headline "A Fable of Resistance."