Oil People
A Novel
Shortlisted for the 2025 Amazon First Novel Award and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Part generational saga, part eco-gothic fable, Oil People is a luminous debut novel about history and family, land and power, and oil as an object of toxic wonder.
1987: Thirteen-year-old Jade Armbruster lives with her parents and older sister on the family’s vintage oil farm—a decrepit property built by her ancestor. As her parents fight about whether to sell the land and their failing business, Jade struggles to avoid her best-friend-turned-nemesis and vies for the attention of the enigmatic farmer boy. Meanwhile, the oil swirling beneath her family’s home provokes erratic behaviours and offers murky revelations about her family’s history on this land.
1862: Clyde Armbruster catches…