Charlotte Dune’s Acid Christmas is the terrifying story of a major tragedy set in the modern world. The book begins as strangers on different journeys converge on Toronto’s Pearson Airport all seeking to return home for the Christmas holiday. A major weather event causes a breakdown in the airport’s systems, however, and all of the passengers become stranded, at first temporarily, and eventually, for an extended period of time.
The book’s main protagonists are Candi, an airline attendant dealing with the recent loss of her husband, and Gretchen, a reporter for Reuters returning home after learning of her brother’s major health scare.
Over the course of the novel, the two navigate a dire situation in an already frantic post-pandemic environment, where people’s sense of the public life has been altered, and where public systems seem to be breaking down before their eyes.
Acid Christmas is a study of the post-pandemic world through the lens of magical realism, where the absurd has taken up residence in the day-to-day experience of normal people. It is a deviation from Dune’s prior work, but a positive one at that.