Life post an arctic plague in a future that looks very different – How High We Go In The Dark
How High We Go – the blurb
Siberia, 2031. After a virus, unearthed from melting permafrost, unleashes a deadly plague upon humanity, those left alive are forced to adapt to a new world, and do so in myriad moving and inventive ways. Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects – a pig – develops human speech; and a widowed painter and her teenage granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
A story of unshakeable hope that seamlessly crosses literary lines, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humankind endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world.
Outside of the box
How exactly do you describe How High We Go In The Dark? It’s fiction definitely but is it sci-fi or literary fiction? Do you lean on the spaceship to a new planet or the father trying to connect with his dead daughter amongst her journals? It’s so damned varied you never know which way you are going to be pulled next and covers everything from talking pigs to rollercoasters of death. Yet Nagamatsu somehow manages to pull out connections amongst these random things and to find the human element, all in a style very similar to that of Station Eleven (which is brilliant by the way go read it).
I didn’t really get the alien part or the singularity in the guys head. I questioned whether I wanted to go on reading about euthanasia fairgrounds for children. Yet I loved the simplicity of Dan Paul’s letter to his neighbourhood and the complicated mother and daughter relationship in the Grave Friends chapter. I suppose that’s the beauty of it, it’s all a series of short stories and if you don’t like one another one will pull you in, revive and keep you going. It’s certainly the most different book I’ve read this year and the imagination of Nagamatsu is without question but it won’t be staying on my bookshelf.
