UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD

Where does the human race go from here? This book is a radical answer to a dark question.

This speculative, artful, and deeply confusing novel sketches out the end of the world while simultaneously positing nearly unthinkable solutions and grappling with fundamental questions about identity, evolution, memory, and individualism. Over 14 tangentially connected, sometimes intertwined stories set across generations, Kawakami infuses her ethereal fiction about future civilization with both scientific inquiry and an acute sense of wonder about the human condition. The opener, “Keepsakes,” introduces the world on its way out, no longer sustainable by natural means. Humans are now cloned in factories and sourced from the DNA of animals as well as people. Designated caregivers called mothers raise children while watchers keep different communities isolated from one another. In “Narcissi” and “Green Garden,” we learn the extent of the cloning involved and begin to meet outliers who don’t fit in. While the science fiction concepts at play aren’t as onerous as the long-spanning timelines in Iain Banks’ The Culture or Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, there’s no easy narrative arc here, either. We get a little more explanation in “Echoes”: “As a result of multiple impacts and other catastrophic events, the human population was in free fall.” But Jakob O’Neal and his partner, Ian Chen, have a plan to divide up the remaining human population in order to force evolution to do its job. Ironically, not much of this speculative future has to do with technology at all—in some timelines, rudimentary technology still exists, while in others, people start to develop inherent changes, among them photosynthesis, clairvoyance, and other superhuman abilities. Yet despite all these fantastic elements, Kawakami is more interested in people and their makeup, introducing a prophet in “The Miracle Worker” and the pains of love in the bookended stories “Love” and “Changes.”

A wild take on humanity’s last stand and our flawed understanding of who we are.