THE LIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE

A post-apocalypse novel takes an unusually optimistic tack, braiding a love story with the efforts of survivors to create new ways to live.

Eisele’s debut is set in a near future where a global economic meltdown has led to the collapse of governments and power grids, complicated by a pandemic of deadly flu and the unchecked effects of climate change. The main characters dealing with those dire circumstances are Beatrix Banks and Carson Waller, a pair of earnest 30-somethings. Beatrix was an activist for fair labor and trade practices, Carson a high school principal. They met when she spoke to one of his classes about global warming; they spent less than two days together, but they’ve kept the spark glowing via the internet—until the web winked out. With no more schools or international trade, they’re at loose ends. Carson leaves his home in what sounds like New York City to walk cross-country to find her, following railroad tracks for 3,000 miles. Beatrix, meanwhile, stays put in her home on the West Coast, banding together with neighbors to share food, dig pit toilets, and schlep buckets of water delivered by horse-drawn carts. The novel alternates between their points of view, except for sections focused on Beatrix’s neighbor Rosie, a teenager conveniently gifted with second sight. As the lovers wonder if they’ll ever find each other, they fret separately over an evangelist named Jonathan Blue, who seems to have taken over the somewhat functional radio airwaves and is exhorting survivors to join his movement. Eisele creates some intriguing characters, but the novel makes dealing with the apocalypse seem a little too easy. Bad times can bring out the best in some people. But given the current state of our deeply divided, heavily armed nation, it takes a stretch to imagine that, in the event of total international disaster, so much of the population would cheerfully turn to manual labor and generosity.

It’s pretty to think that a global economic, political, and technological collapse could be solved by bike co-ops, backyard chickens, and a radio show about a homegrown superhero, plus a little true love, but this novel just doesn’t make it plausible.