Christine Kilfoil, The One Percenters, independently published, 2023. Available on Kindle or in paperback on Amazon.
Christine Kilfoil is a Lowertown resident, Echo contributor and now a writer of young-adult fiction. Her book is dedicated to her “six inspirations,” and the story reflects her experience with and knowledge of teenagers. It also highlights the fact that these teenagers live in a world of climate emergencies, global pandemics and economic inequities.
In this book, Ellen is the 17-year-old principal support for her California-based family while her father is away trying to find work. Besides her mother, she has three brothers—Michael, Brendan and Sean—and two sisters, Mary and Jenny. Jay is a Canadian, who, with his brother Harry, is looking for the mother that abandoned them to move to Orange County with a new man.
It is a bleak world for these young people. The one percenters consolidated power in the United States while the nation struggled with a pandemic. They are a mysterious group of the super-rich, the seriously wealthy—the top one percent of financiers, and owners of social media platforms, shopping platforms and search engines. Their goal is control over every aspect of life in the nation.
The plot is action-filled and complicated. It reveals humans at their worst—authorities separating families, neighbours reporting on neighbours, guards starving and beating imprisoned workers. It also shows the strength of sibling loyalty, the determination of young people to resist, and especially the capacity for teenagers to work together to overcome obstacles.
