How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel [B1102]

2022 HCDJ 1st edition in excellent condition. New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club pick. Shortlisted for the The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. 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.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I picked this one up because I want to read every banned book I possibly can. This was definitely a sad and depressing one, way sadder than I thought the book was going to be. However, it gave me a lot of perspective on things, and I loved the style of switching plots. This book becomes increasingly relevant, only written a couple of years ago, but I could've been convinced that it was written today."; "Wow, this is one of my favorite books in recent memory. It's a series of short stories, all with (mostly) different characters, but they're interconnected and tell a story over the course of decades and centuries. It's...depressing as hell, because it's based around a deadly pandemic that targets mostly children, but somehow still hopeful and uplifting? It's complicated, and I have complicated feelings about it, but it was beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it."; "A devastating but ultimately optimistic collection of love letters to the human spirit. This book includes what is perhaps the single saddest chapter I have ever come across, so that's neat."; "This book may have just become my new favorite read ever. So intricate. Nagamatsu's imagination blew my mind. Fantastic. Plus involved so many of my interests including virology, public health, post-apocalypse, outer space, palliative care, end of life decisions. The web of all the time periods and characters made this such a masterpiece with its small peeks into so many lives."