“In the Bright Future, the environmental rampage will have ended, amnesty will be given to all those who return to their senses, and it will be said, ‘We are not free yet, but we are on our way!’” On an asterism situated between two constellations in a universe not far from this one, a motley assortment of well-meaning but ineffectual people—who have been psychically kidnapped—train and prepare for the Bright Future, an almost-utopia they will eventually be deployed to enact back on planet Earth. Part boot-camp space-travel memoir, part how-to manual for the construction of a paradise, The People’s Republic of Valerie, Living Room Edition is an attempt to transform feelings of despair, grief, and rage into something of value, into positive action, into something of beauty that might uplift and create space and occasion for imagination and community.