Review by Booklist Review
In a departure from Whiskey When We're Dry (2018), Larison presents a tale of a desolate but uplifting future. Small civilizations have formed after the collapse of society. A family that lives by the sea is torn apart when Leerit, Maren, and Kushim's parents disappear and never return. The siblings decide to search for their aunt and her inland village. Meanwhile, their mother, Lilah, has been taken captive for indentured servitude in a "civilized" society. The extraction of natural resources has created a caste system of warriors, generals, and kings. Cyrus, heir to his family's wool business, wrestles with his conscience, questioning whether his own behavior is fit for a position of privilege; he must also decide who deserves to board the ark that will take a select few to greener shores--his family or his lover. Every character is on the run or wishing to escape. They must also survive great adversity, especially the siblings fighting for their lives in the wilderness. This is a moving and expansive tale illuminating the emotional range of the human spirit. Larison's lyrical writing will hook readers of plot-driven literary fiction.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Larison (Whiskey When We're Dry) spins a provocative if tedious story of survival decades after an ecological collapse. After Maren, 12, and Kushim, nine, discover their parents are missing, they set off from their remote fishing village with their older sister, Leerit, to find the extended family who abandoned them. A parallel narrative follows their mother, Lilah, forced into slavery by her abductors, who killed their father in the struggle. Lilah toils for wool producer Cyrus to meet the new quota set by the emperor, who's promised to transport their city's residents to a land of plenty aboard an ark.. Cyrus, however, would rather spend time studying the scrolls with fragments of ancient stories (readers will recognize faint biblical echoes and canonical poetry). After Kushim is attacked and grievously injured by a bear, the siblings are split up, with imperial forces rushing Kushim to the city for care, and Leerit leaving Maren with sheep herders to join a band of guerrillas against the emperor. The pacing tends to drag under the weight of so many plot threads, but Larison fascinates with his core themes, showing how stories are used for societal control. Those willing to go the distance will find a thoughtful twist on climate fiction. Agent: Chris Parris-Lamb, Gernert Co. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two inimical societies seek to escape the ravages of climate change in this imaginative novel. Extend the post-apocalyptic sections of David Mitchell'sCloud Atlas and you're in the territory of Larison's tale. Set in unspecified locations--though one imagines Alaska at one end and southern California at the other--it begins with children of a hunting clan who have been abandoned. That's not through any neglect on the part of their elders, but because they've been shanghaied into slavery. The children set out to find their people, braving tall mountains, fierce critters, and snow that Larison writes, poetically, "looked like knapped flint falling through water." Explains another to the youngest, a brave but hapless brother, "Nothing wrong in this world is ever the fault of children." Far away, their captive mother thinks much the same thing: "Children shouldn't be blamed." Nonetheless, children grow up to be strange beings. One is a scholar named Cyrus, a student of history and confidant of the emperor manqué of the slaveholders, who manages a network of spies and snitches that the Stasi might envy: "In this village, there were so many eyes." Indeed, though, when that young brother finds his unlikely way into the city, no one but the higher-ups pay him much mind. Perhaps that's because everyone's preoccupied with a deadly drought, with all the hunger and want it brings. The ruling class has an out--an ark whose bearings are set on a rumored green land far away, "a land of lakes and grass, fruit trees and nuts, grapes and endless harvests, a land that knew no drought and no winter." Will they get there? The ending is a touch melodramatic, and even predictable, but Larison does a good job of worldbuilding overall, with believable characters and (mostly) believable plot twists. Warnings are wrapped up inside of portents in turning today's headlines into literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
