In the shadow of environmental catastrophe and personal loss, a young woman named Lee Kelly drifts through San Francisco in a haze of longing, denial, and alienation. World-weary but imaginative, she hopes the city might save her. Instead, she finds herself caught between fantasy and disillusionment, seeking solace in bars, friendships, and fleeting intimacies. By turns tender, funny, and sad, The Year of the Oil Spill is a sharply observed novel about grief, desire, and the uneasy work of becoming in a city haunted by its own myths.