Station by station the train emptied. We ran east into the tail end of the morning and then into the afternoon, rattling through the outskirts of the city, through its hinterland to what lay beyond, a succession of small towns with bunting strung across their streets giving out to fields, to woods, to the curve of a river and children standing on a white-painted bridge, a village with a fête, a farm with horses. Pink houses sat alone between hedges. Unfamiliar stations stood undisturbed. By the end there was only us and one other woman, who sat two seats in front of us and turned to stare at me. Pauly breathed a cloud onto the window and used his finger to draw faces in it. In this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster. That evening, Francesca came home. I don’t know where she had been, but she smelled of mold and filthy water and she was exhausted. She looked thin. After Pauly was in bed, I sat with her and father at the kitchen table. Pauly is so young when disaster strikes that much of his understanding of reality is grounded in his life in the High House; he has “forgotten an entire world,” he reflects. Do you think this gives him a greater capacity for happiness or contentedness than the others? Why or why not? Honor Arundel was a novelist for children and young adults, critic, playwright, poet, editor, and journalist.

Because Francesca does not intend to cease her work after her son is born, her shelter must include trusted others who can look after him when she can’t. Enter Grandy and Sally (a grandfather and his university student granddaughter), who have already suffered losses only hinted at in the novel.

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The next morning when I went downstairs, father was in the kitchen drinking coffee, and Francesca was gone.

that we are now looking at a future in which we no longer have fair warning of extreme weather events?This postapocalyptic, introspective drama is all about the love of family, isolation, hopelessness, and the will to go on. Readers will be asking the question, is it better to remember the life you had before and all that's been lost, or to start fresh, only knowing this new existence? This novel is perfect for those who enjoy beautifully written, thought-provoking stories." - Booklist To engage further with this topic, consider reading other recent works of climate fiction, like Weather by Jenny Offill and Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins, or nonfiction, like The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells or Move by Parag Khanna.

The novel’s verisimilitude is striking...it’s done with restraint and propelled by finely observed dynamics between characters who grapple with survivors’ guilt and ungraspable truths ... Described in measured, meditative prose, humanity’s paralysis is painful to read: the myopic faith in the status quo, the fearful waiting game ... This sobering prophecy of collective guilt is also a hypnotic elegy to nature, and our vanishing place in it. " We made our way across the busy concourse, found the platform, found the train. Found seats. Sat down.I said, more sharply than I meant because I felt the woman’s judgment on me, but it wasn’t Pauly’s fault that he was bored, and at once I was ashamed.