NEVER SEE THE SUN AGAIN

Feltman’s thought-provoking speculative novel follows humanity underground in the wake of climate change catastrophes.

Manny is the son of Patrick Stewart, the police chief for the colony of New York in the year 2350. Three hundred years earlier, Hurricane Yolanda drove New York City residents into the subway system, where 7,000 brave souls set up a new underground community. When the book opens, Manny is lonely; ever since Manny’s beloved mother died three years earlier, Patrick has thrown himself into his work and ignored his son. Manny’s life changes when he makes a new, older friend, Julio Suarez. He spends more and more time at the Suarez home until they officially become his foster family following a particularly abusive episode with the alcoholic Patrick. The rest of the story focuses on how Manny grows and matures in a loving environment, though the shadow of Patrick continues to loom large throughout the story. As he nears graduation, Manny begins to wonder if the outside world might once again be hospitable for humans; the epilogue neatly sets up the next volume in Feltman’s Starlight and Ashes trilogy (“Maybe the environment is no longer as hostile to human beings as it was in the early days of gasoline engines and deforestation, earthquakes and wild fires”). In her debut work, the author succeeds in creating a believable civilization established by survivors of extreme weather. The colony’s residents have to walk and are restricted to vegetarian diets, yet they still have electronic devices—the clever survivors haven’t been forced back to the Stone Age. But cultural inertia has set in over the centuries, and nobody gives any thought to the outside world that their ancestors left behind, despite its potential. In addition to serving as a cautionary tale, the book describes a boy’s journey to find a family to call his own after being rejected by his father. Manny is a fascinating case study of nature versus nurture—watching him evolve is even more entrancing than exploring the contradictory place in which he lives.

A bracing narrative that confronts hard truths and raises fascinating possibilities.