How High We Go in the Dark
Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - ROXANE GAY'S AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK - FINALIST FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE
"Moving and thought-provoking . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits." -- New York Times Book Review
"Haunting and luminous . . . Beautiful and lucid science fiction. An astonishing debut." -- Alan Moore, creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta
Recommended by New York Times Book Review - Los Angeles Times - NPR - Washington Post - Wall Street Journal - Entertainment Weekly - Esquire - Good Housekeeping - NBC News - Buzzfeed - Goodreads - The Millions - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Minneapolis Star-Tribune - San Francisco Chronicle - The Guardian - and many more!
For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague--a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice.
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects--a pig--develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
"Wondrous, and not just in the feats of imagination, which are so numerous it makes me dizzy to recall them, but also in the humanity and tenderness with which Sequoia Nagamatsu helps us navigate this landscape. . . . This is a truly amazing book, one to keep close as we imagine the uncertain future." -- Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
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About the Author
Sequoia Nagamatsu is a Japanese-American writer and managing editor of Psychopomp Magazine, an online quarterly dedicated to innovative prose. Originally from Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay Area, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. His work has appeared in such publications as Conjunctions, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, Fairy Tale Review, and Tin House. He is the author of the award-winning short story collection Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone and teaches creative writing at St. Olaf College and the Rainier Writing Workshop Low-Residency MFA program. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife, cat, and a robot dog named Calvino.
Reviews
"How High We Go in the Dark is not a plague novel; it is an after plague novel. Sequoia Nagamatsu nimbly bounds through time, space, and species while tackling the question, Where do we go from here? My favorite kind of speculative fiction--philosophical and hopeful; endlessly inventive, with a beating heart."--Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
As ambitious as it is intimate, How High We Go in the Dark is both a prescient warning and a promise of human resilience in the face of any odds. Sequoia Nagamatsu masterfully connects each slice of life into one epic and unforgettable tale, spanning centuries and generations. His debut envisions a future that is at once wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible. It reaches far beyond our stars while its heart remains rooted to Earth, and reminds us that our wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of our world.--Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree
You can try to compare Sequoia Nagamatsu to George Saunders or Charlie Kaufman or David Mitchell, but his is a singular voice and this is a book so original and wondrous and reality-shredding that it defies easy summary or categorization, like a dream that feels more vivid than life. Arctic plagues! Euthanasia theme parks! Hotels for the dead! Talking pigs! Interstellar starships! It's brave and prescient, completely bananas and yet absolutely moving, packed with humor and heart. I loved it.--Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal
"A novel that is both grimly timely while also moving past our usual notions of time to reveal a wider view--Sequoia Nagamatsu allows his story to unspool with such a great sense of scope, freedom, and clarity, creating a stunning mosaic of experience and humanness."--Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark is a sprawling, epic debut that ventures from the Arctic to interstellar space, from life to what may come after it. With precision and harrowing prescience, Nagamatsu envisions the effects--both cultural and planetary--of a mysterious, devastating pandemic; but he explores, too, the astonishing commitment, resilience, and capacity for resilience that enables life--human and otherwise--to reach for survival. Sequoia Nagamatsu is a writer whose imagination is matched only by his compassion, the kind we need to light our way through the dark.--Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists
How High We Go in the Dark is wondrous not just in the feats of imagination, which are so numerous that it makes me dizzy to recall them, but also in the humanity and tenderness with which Sequoia Nagamatsu helps us navigate this landscape, to find a way to survive while holding onto the things that make us human. This is a truly amazing book, one to keep close as we imagine the uncertain future.--Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
Haunting and luminous, How High We Go in the Dark orchestrates its multitude of memorable voices into beautiful and lucid science fiction that resembles a fitful future memory of our present. An astonishing debut.--Alan Moore, creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta
Both epic and deeply intimate, Nagamatsu's debut novel is science fiction at its finest, rendered in gorgeous, evocative prose and offering hope in the face of tragedy through human connection.--Booklist (starred review)
Nagamatsu blends literary and visionary verve in a narrative that's garnering comparisons to Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven.--Library Journal (Spotlight)
