The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick
New York Times bestselling author Nikki Erlick has a way of concocting the most implausible premises and making them sound plausible, compelling and thought-provoking.
Take her debut novel, The Measure, an instant bestseller, in which everybody on earth opens their front doors on the same day to find a small wooden box with a string inside. The length of the string tells the person the exact number of years he or she has left to live. But you don’t have to open the box — you can choose not to know. How’s that for some great book club ammo!
Fast forward to Erlick’s latest novel, The Poppy Fields, the name of an experimental lab in the California desert where thousands of patients enter a long-term state of sleep, similar to a medically induced coma, for at least a month to help recover from a devastating personal loss. In theory, they wake up refreshed and find they have avoided the harshest pain caused by their grief, although — and here’s the twist — one out of four patients experiences side effects that wipe out their emotions altogether.
A Wild Concept Grounded in Emotion
Far-fetched as the premise sounds, Erlick has a gifted writing style that draws us in immediately. And she has a knack for creating everyday, well-defined characters that remind us of, well, us – people from different backgrounds and walks of life trying to make it in this world and faced with the usual anxieties and flaws that show them as real, relatable and complicated.
Erlick says the idea for The Poppy Fields came to her at a time of loss in her own life, “when I lay in bed feeling overcome by a desire to sleep through the pain, unfeeling and unaware, and then wake up to a brighter day.”
She recalls staring at a poster in her bedroom of the Wizard of Oz, with Dorothy asleep in the poppy fields. Her novel not only claims that title but brings together four strangers (and, of course, a dog) on a journey to the Poppy Fields with different storylines and purposes. In fact, only one of the four main characters is actually traveling to the Poppy Fields as a prospective patient.
What drives people to the Poppy Fields? Perhaps the words of one applicant, an art historian, so poignantly captures it in his describing a Renaissance painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. Only if one looks closely can he or she even notice a boy who has fallen from the sky and is drowning. “No one in the painting notices him, and the rest of the world goes on…The moment when you realize that your world and the world are entirely separate. When your world has come to a grinding halt, when you’re drowning and flailing about, and the world just rolls on without you.”
Four Strangers and One Unforgettable Journey
The book focuses on the four strangers; Ava, a book illustrator seeking out her sister at the fields; Sasha, an occupational therapist hoping for relief from the pain of a lost love; Ray, a firefighter in search of the truth about his brother, who died shortly after leaving the fields; and Sky, described as a young free spirit.
When their flight to the Poppy Fields gets cancelled due to a tornado, Ava, Sasha and Ray rent a car and journey cross country together to their destination. At some point, Sky joins them. This is where Erlick shines – creating characters and backstories that provide authenticity and make the unimaginable storyline somehow imaginable, at least enough to get us to care for the characters and hang on their adventures.
And what of Ellis, the founder of the Poppy Fields? Erlick not only tracks the course of the four travelers but also gets into the mind of this fascinating character – her childhood, her growth and from where her ambition and motivations derive.
Erlick uses newspaper clippings and applicant interviews as a technique to help advance the story and set us up for some surprises.
The author has a way of dropping a few bombs that you don’t see coming, and she introduces them with such a fine writing technique to make readers’ jaws drop and ask, “What did I just read?”
A Story That Asks the Hardest Questions
And is The Poppy Fields purely for the good of the people and society they proclaim to serve? Or is there something sinister behind them? Is it a place for human healing, or for human lab rats?
This is the kind of book that makes readers speculate what they might do if given such a choice. Like The Measure, The Poppy Fields is more about the human condition and less about science. It’s about the people and the choices they make. It’s never even fully explained how the treatment works (I guess if it was, then The Poppy Fields would be real), much like The Measure left us guessing where the small wooden boxes came from. That helps us understand what’s important to Erlick as the storyteller — the actions and emotions of her cast.
I can’t remember a writer whose first two novels posed such challenging questions for readers – and all the while delivering a captivating cliffhanger with characters who so magnificently come to life through the written word.
I, for one, can’t wait to hear about Nikki Erlick’s next big idea.
About Nikki Erlick:
Nikki Erlick’s debut novel, The Measure, was an instant New York Times bestseller upon publication in June 2022, with translations forthcoming in 24 languages. The Measure was selected as Jenna Bush Hager and The TODAY Show’s #ReadWithJenna Book Club pick as well as the Barnes & Noble Discover Pick.
Her work has also appeared online with New York Magazine, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, Literary Hub, Indagare Travel, BookTrib, and Vox Media.
As a travel writer, Niki explored nearly a dozen countries on assignment—from rural villages in France to the arctic fjords of Norway. As a ghostwriter, she’s written for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and academics She graduated Harvard University summa cum laude and was an editor of The Harvard Crimson. She earned her master’s degree in Global Thought from Columbia University. Visit www.nikkierlick.com.
