Juniper Time

Juniper Time is a panoramic and hauntingly beautiful novel of the survival of humankind and nature. Drought has devastated the western United States and the people migrate eastward to settle in squalid concentration camps called "Newtowns". One woman, Jean Brighton, flees in the opposite direction. A linguist who can decode secret messages and make sense of alien languages, Jean has found governmental pressure on her university work untenable, and she heads for the only place she knows she will be safe — her grandfather's now-deserted house in the Pacific Northwest. Yet her survival does not come from her own devices alone, for she receives the help of Indians who have stayed to reclaim the land that was once theirs. Through them and the mysteries of their world, Jean masters the art of survival, not only in the desolate Northwest but also in the white man's world she must return to someday.