First loves, summer flings, mad crushes, and unrequited longings—set all these heady things against the backdrop of Llamalo, a rugged summer camp in the Colorado mountains and within the context of Reagan-era policies and a looming Gulf War, and the experience is a roller-coaster of high drama and shattered ideals ... Abel’s first novel is a finely textured exploration of committed individuals caught in the throes of an idealistic atmosphere.
Abel, who previously worked as a reporter, is a perceptive writer whose astute observations keep the book funny and light even under the weight of its Big Ideas ... Abel draws convincing parallels between the rituals of camp and those of activism: the sign-making, the protesting, the weekly editorial writing.
Abel smartly juxtaposes this fateful summer of structured activities and unstructured hormones with regular flashbacks that reveal the rickety frame on which Camp Llamalo came to be. In the process she satirizes her characters’ idealism and the compromises they make. She also pokes fun at their obtuseness regarding the land and culture they’ve invaded ... The Optimistic Decade is an exceptional coming-of-age novel, in which Abel proves herself a witty social observer who understands not only the thrum and throes of adolescence, but also the power and beauty of youthful energy and dreams.
The Optimistic Decade deserves the elusive accolade of 'original' for its believable construction and flawless attention to detail. Within the brilliant, multilayered canopy of the novel’s world, Heather Abel’s writing comes across as a sincere and tender channel for a story that must be told ... Abel’s writing easily captures the vivid wilderness of Colorado, and her flashes of description somehow create a sense of nostalgia for multiple eras, as the story and backstory juxtapose the Reagan years with the onset of the Gulf War. As Abel’s characters surmise, perhaps everyone gets one optimistic decade before they can no longer deny that their actions are inconsequential and the future is going to happen whether they like it or not. Each person must choose to keep pushing forward, because a life without purpose is just as dissatisfying as dwelling in worthlessness. Above all else, this strong, astute debut is a study of love in many forms. To read it is nothing less than a mitzvah.
Abel is as adept at glossing the politics of the Reagan era and class anger as she is charting shifts in the landscape and change among campers, counsellors and Caleb himself. A fresh and savvy first novel.
Abel combines a wry sense of humor with compassion towards all of her misguided characters. A strong sense of time and place anchors the story, and Abel’s well-crafted plot brings all the strands of the story together into a suspenseful yet believable conclusion. Without landing heavily on any political side, and without abandoning hope, Abel’s novel lightly but firmly raises questions about how class and cultural conflicts play out in the rural West.
It takes more than 300 pages for first-time novelist Abel to reveal the meaning of her title ... Abel is excellent at class resentment and its signifiers ... Abel writes in larking, pleasurable sentences, letting each protagonist—including David Cohen, devoted camper and Rebecca’s childhood friend—wrestle with loneliness and horniness and purpose. The story moves across one summer in the early 1990s, with short, clever flashbacks to the Reagan-era 1980s. But the pacing is off: Very little happens in the first third and too much is crammed into the last stretch. A playful look at Jewish coming-of-age and coming-to-terms in the American West.
