Mudlark

by Mary Helen Specht

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction; Sagas; Science Fiction; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi

Synopsis

A dazzling dystopian novel about the fall of a troubled rockstar, her long-lost solo album, and her daughter's epic search for redemption in the ruins of New York City.

"Combines the spellbinding worldbuilding of Station Eleven with a rock-and-roll heart . . . A luscious, awe-inspiring, and gorgeously written novel about love and how it will save us, no matter what the future holds."—Amanda Eyre Ward

Jenny Sweet's marriage is ending—and with it her band and maybe even her fragile relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Neko. A reluctant wife and mother, Jenny plans a new journey of self-discovery after one more gig at Burning Man. But when Neko disappears amid the chaos of the festival, Jenny fears that everything that mattered to her has been lost. As she races against the dark, Jenny finds herself thrown into the past, and into the heart of a gathering storm.

Now twenty-five, Neko is a mudlark: a trained recruit who braves the rival factions and feral survivalists in the ruins of a crumbling, flooded Manhattan for resources that grow scarcer by the day. When she stumbles upon the master of her mother’s long-lost solo album and later hears that someone else is searching for it—someone who could be her mother, missing for over a decade—she embarks on a perilous adventure with a ragtag crew that will take her from treetop societies to decadent raves to the underground bunker where she will, finally, confront her mother's fate—and her own. 

A profound tale of resilience set in a future wracked by calamity and buoyed by hope, Mudlark is an unforgettable novel that explores how love and art persist as beacons of humanity.

Release date: July 21, 2026

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

1

burning man

7 p.m.

The last time Jenny Sweet saw her daughter, the world was lashed in gold. Pastel light refracted by white sand. Dusk.

In the distance, objects were illumined against the dying sky: A temple filigreed in silver and gold, tiered like a wedding cake. An arcing set of prongs, the rib cage of a whale. A two-­story Doc Martens boot attached to a clothesline—­was it for the old woman who lived in a shoe? The one with all the children?

Black Rock Desert was better in photographs than in real life. Because even with her aviator goggles and the handwoven scarf gifted to her by a mermaid, Jenny felt besieged by beautiful dirt: digging in wherever cloth touched skin, fusing with the membranes of her lungs and eyes, muffling the sound of the amps.

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues . . .

The temperature dropped like a sigh of relief. Jenny looked for her daughter, to see if she was wearing her jacket. Of course not. There was thirteen-­year-­old Neko by the edge of the stage, twirling cords of glowing neon plastic, mesmerized by the cheap noodles of rainbow light as she danced, limbs so liquid it was as if she had yet to grow bones.

Jenny nodded at the guitar tech as he finished tuning her Les Paul Goldtop, leaning it back into the stand. The crowd hadn’t recognized the band yet—­everybody else on the Playa was dressed more like rock stars than they were. This gig, if you could even call it that, had been Max’s idea—­to promote their final album with a surprise set at Burning Man. To Jenny, it seemed like a lot of trouble for a show with no tickets, no take. For an album by a band that, unbeknownst to its fans, was breaking up. But Max got his way. As usual.

“Neko.” She pointed to her daughter’s bag near the tower of bottled water they’d packed in with them. “Hoodie, please.” She wanted so badly to touch her, to gently slide the jacket onto her shoulders like she had when her daughter was small.

Neko frowned, clearly loathe to cover up the sequined halter she’d insisted on wearing. “I’m not cold,” she said, and Jenny tried not to flinch at the hardness in her daughter’s voice.

A man climbed the stage: Microphone feedback. Speaker distortion. Across the way, Max gave her the signal—­two minutes to show. The man was introducing them to a surprised and gathering hive of desert people. Jenny found the candy-­apple-­red high-­fidelity headphones and handed them to Neko, brushing two fingers along her cheekbone, smearing a patina of sand across her daughter’s skin. She couldn’t help herself.

Neko didn’t react; despite having begged to tag along with them from New York, she was a statue erected in honor of bitter teenage self-­righteousness.

“You’re either ‘radical or pro-­parental,’ ” Jenny intoned, taking off her goggles to splash the lenses with water. “Congrats on being so radical.”

“Who says that?” snapped Neko.

“Bikini Kill sang that.”

“It doesn’t even make sense.”

“Or does it?” Jenny raised her eyebrows.

“Mom, I’m starving. Did you even bring any food?”

Jenny squatted and rifled through her backpack. “Can you wait?”

Neko pursed her lips and pointed at a tent fifty yards away. “There’s pizza over there.”

Jenny sighed. “Fine. Straight there and straight back.”

7:30 p.m.

On stage, Jenny took her place between Max and Jesse—­they didn’t have a front man, per se, but the audience liked to see a woman at the center, a little T & A, a little window dressing between the white guy and the brown guy, though Jenny tried not to think of it that way (dressed as she was in a plain T-­shirt and billowy Thai fisherman pants). Plus, she thought, she played the axe like a killer, didn’t she, and even wrote some of the songs.

The Nightjars were one of those indie bands that had been elevated to a certain level of fame. They weren’t so young anymore, and neither were their fans, but they were still f***ing cool. In fact, that’s what people said when they spotted her or Max or Jesse on the street. F***ing cool, man. F***ing cool. And that’s what the Burners were saying now as they yelled and swarmed, kicking up dust until their glittery faces and writhing bodies blurred. F***ing cool, man. It’s the Nightjars. The Nightjars are right there, man. They’re home, man.

The acoustics were crap, and Jenny didn’t even want to think about what the sand was doing to the equipment; it was like playing a concert in a dust storm. Maybe this was just how the world was now: Dust devils in Nevada while a Category 5 hurricane threatened the whole Eastern Seaboard.

The grid of tents in the distance was like the desert base of a post-­apocalyptic warlord. And people paid so much money, spent forever in a line of cars, just to be in this heat and cold and sand and thirst with thousands of strangers. Temporary community building was what they called it. Her brain reacted violently to the phrase, prompting Jenny’s mental deejay, supplying a constant internal soundtrack to what might be called her life, to begin pumping drugged-­out psychedelia, all the masters of drone.

The Nightjars opened their set with the pointillist dual-­guitar odyssey they were known for, building toward crashing bar chords underpinned by Jesse on the drums. They’d never gotten around to adding a bassist, but they filled in the lower register with an octave pedal. Their technique was meticulous but their sound was messy, never cleaned up, never slick. The sonic landscape, not so unlike their personal one, was meant to sound ruinous and it did.

Despite their success, Jenny had always thought of the Nightjars as an arthouse band. But if this desert carnival was what Americans considered art these days, then maybe not. Clearly her plan to run away from all this was for the best. Then, at least, she could close her eyes to this bullshit, throw herself into the next project: a sound installation in Berlin, a Frankenstein instrument to be housed in the bowels of a church, fabricated to take advantage of its acoustic resonance. A 40K­lumen projector, lights dancing in synchronicity. A religious experience for the nonreligious. Maybe, one day, it would even impress her daughter.

After the intro, Jenny switched out her Telecaster for the Goldtop and put the goggles back on, even though they blocked her peripheral vision: She felt like a kid looking through the cardboard tube of a roll of paper towels. Or through a kaleidoscope, colors shifting and glimmering into arrays of stained glass.

Onstage in the wind and dust, Jenny morphed into her father, who once spent a summer driving without a windshield, just goggles between him and the road ahead. She’d found his old goggles from that road trip in the attic and worn them to school every day until the hardened rubber finally crumbled in her hands. Her gentle dad, the professor of classics, who died before he ever got to see the Nightjars perform. With the goggles on, it didn’t feel like Jenny was performing, but rather like she was the audience watching everything happen. A beautiful inversion. An unleashing. A letting go.

8:30 p.m.

After the set, Jenny was disoriented as she stepped down from the stage, the amp feedback echoing as she struggled to find her guitar case, tripping over a snake of cords. She’d become spoiled, accustomed to professional staff, equipment being shepherded on and off as if by punk-rock ghosts. She shivered and looked around for her leather jacket. Her skin stretched tight across neck and cheekbones. Her lips cracked and bled.

Then Max was beside her. Recently he’d grown a small paunch, partly disguised by the loose flow of his guayabera; his long eyelashes and the splash of freckles across his nose made him look younger than he was. Out of habit, she stupidly angled her head for a kiss, but instead, he leaned toward her ear. “Where’s Neko?”

She bit her lip. It was so strange that her brain had to keep reminding her: They were separated. They were sep-­a-­rated. I used to be your sweet mama, sweet papa, but now I’m just as sour as can be . . .

Jenny swiveled toward the steps and the undulation of roadies and fans. No candy-­apple-­red headphones. No sequined halter top.

“Did you tell her she could leave?” asked Max, an edge to his voice. Lately, he was so quick to annoy. To blame her for things. He was getting his freedom, getting their East Village apartment. What more did he want?