A harrowing road trip across the wintry high plains has lasting repercussions for best friends whose lives drastically diverge in the weekend’s troubled wake. against the backdrop of a world on the brink of inconceivable transformation, spanning five decades, EVERYTHING IS RUINED is the story of two remarkable women; the forces that shape (and Could destroy) them; and the inner resources upon which each must draw in order to survive.
“Just as they came to the end of the cutoff, a monster they had not known was gaining on them caught up, a tractor-trailer like the one they’d met earlier. A loud, decelerative, machine-gun popping was the only startling indication of its approach. The speeds of the larger and smaller must have nearly matched because the impact was gentle—more a push than a crash. They hung, suspended, between the contact and its consequences. The Chevette was thrust across the T, off the road—Jamie bellowed something, a cry of protestation—into a great pillow of snow, where it stuck, partially buried. The rig turned south and went on its way. The whole thing took no more than a few seconds and concluded with the subsiding roar of the diesel engine. Then, they were alone again.”