Eight people take part in an ecological experiment in 1990s Arizona. Sealed inside an artificial, self-sustaining environment with 3,800 species, they live in total isolation for two years. Inspired by real events, this is an acutely insightful, darkly comic story of human behaviour, animal instincts, idealism and ambition. Putting utopian visions and individual motives under the microscope, this is T. C. Boyle at his acerbic, pitch-perfect best.