Eradication: A Fable

From acclaimed author Jonathan Miles ("a writer so virtuosic that readers will feel themselves becoming better, more observant people from reading him"--Los Angeles Times) comes a blackly comic literary gem in which a broken man confronts a broken world on an uninhabited Pacific island.

"Beautifully weird, eerie, unexpected -- a story for our times." --Kevin Barry, author of The Heart in Winter and Night Boat to Tangier

Reeling from tragedy, a former jazz musician-turned-schoolteacher named Adi answers a job listing advertising a chance to save the world. The assignment: to spend five weeks alone on the tiny, isolated Pacific Island of Santa Flora righting an ecological balance that's gone severely out of whack, with the aim of preserving countless bird and plant species from certain extinction. What follows, however, is anything but balanced. The threats to the once-Edenic island, Adi soon learns, aren't exactly what his employers said they were--and, complicating things further, he discovers he's not alone on the island. Fearful for his own life, and for the fate of the island's, Adi spends his sun-drenched days rooting out the true threat to Santa Flora, and, by extension, to the world it occupies--and the desperate steps he must take to eradicate it.

A desert-island meditation on the contours of love and grief and solitude, as well as jolt to your emotional core, Eradication is an utterly unforgettable reading experience, a narrative tour de force, and the work of a truly singular imagination. With this fourth work of fiction, Jonathan Miles, "a fluid, confident, and profoundly talented writer" (Dave Eggers) has truly come into his own.

Author: Jonathan Miles
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Published: 02/10/2026
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.30w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780385551915


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 01/01/2026
Publishers Weekly 11/10/2025
Shelf Awareness 01/01/0001
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2025

About the Author
JONATHAN MILES is the author of the novels Dear American Airlines and Want Not, both New York Times Notable books, and the novel Anatomy of a Miracle. His journalism, essays, and criticism have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The New York Times, where he served as a columnist. In 2024 he toured as a multi-instrumentalist in the band of the Grammy-winning artist Jon Batiste. He currently serves as Writer-in-Residence at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania.