Global warming is real and T.C. Boyle highlights some of the unfortunate consequences in this seriocomic, climate fiction (cli-fi) novel. California is getting drier, Florida is getting wetter, and we observe the effects through the eyes of a family split between the coasts.
*****
Ottilie and Frank raised their children, Cooper and Catherine (Cat), in Santa Barbara, California, a coastal city that lies between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Santa Barbara
Cooper, a Ph.D. student in entomology, now lives in the nearby Santa Ynez Valley;
and Cat, a would-be influencer, lives in a beach house near St. Augustine, Florida, with her fiancé Todd.
Until Ottilie retired three years ago, she'd run her husband Frank's medical practice, overseeing everything, 'hiring and firing, the supply chain, billing, insurance, even rotating the dracaena and umbrella plants in the waiting room.'
Ottilie's life is more relaxed these days, with laps in the pool every morning; socializing with her best friend Sylvie; cocktails, wine, and gourmet dinners; etc. Now, at the behest of her environmentalist son Cooper, Ottilie has taken up cricket farming - growing the insects in a home cricket reactor.
Cricket Reactor
According to Cooper's mantra, this would produce an 'endless supply of high-fiber, low-fat protein' and would 'reduce the methane load produced by the earth's billion or so cattle and the felling of all those forests to provide pasture for them.' Ottilie prepares insect recipes like cricket chapulines and cricket tacos for her family, and even (clandestinely) serves disguised cricket dishes at a dinner party.
Cricket Chapulines
Cricket Tacos
Unfortunately, home insect farms don't do much to attenuate climate change, and California has been experiencing a drought for four or five years. This results in water shortages, wildfires, and widespread death and destruction. The converse is true of Florida, where the constant humidity and frequent storms result in wetness and mold everywhere, and the ubiquitous odor of mold, rot, and decay.
Drought in California
Flooding in Florida
Thus Ottilie, Frank, and Cooper have too little water; and Cat has too much.
The story is told in the rotating voices of Ottilie, Cooper and Cat, all of whose lives are (more or less) unstrung over the course of the story.
When Cat first moves to Florida with Todd, she's at something of a loose end. Todd is a brand ambassador for Bacardí rum, which involves hosting parties all over the world. Todd's frequent travels often leave Cat home alone, and though she picks up a little work here and there, Cat's ambition is to be an influencer. Thus Cat is trying to build up followers, but it's slow going, and she needs a 'hook.'
Cat is wandering around the local shopping district one afternoon, planning to drop into Bobo's for a mojito or two, when she spots a shop called 'Herps.' The reptile store has a huge, eye-catching snake in the window and Cat hits on the idea of buying a snake - a beautiful brown and gold serpent she can drape around her neck for social media pictures.
Cat ends up with a Burmese python named Willie II, and the photos of Cat and Willie II collect like after like. Cat thinks she's stumbled onto an identity that will elevate her as an influencer, 'the Snake Lady here to sell your line of tops, or jewelry or designer tees or whatever it was.'
Todd isn't thrilled about having a snake in the house, but he lets it go, and the serpent is installed in a glass cage in the living room. Willie II plays an important role in the following chain of events.
In the meantime, things get worse and worse along Florida's beachfront. Because of the rainstorms, hurricanes, and tides, Cat can't trust her driveway or even the peninsula road, a whole section of which keeps washing out as fast as it's repaired. So Cat often leaves the car (Todd's showy Tesla) in Bobo's parking lot, and pilots a skiff to town.
Cat also has to deal with 'the mold creeping insidiously up the walls and the pilings rotting under the house.' Add to that the threat of termites, 'a kind of metastasizing arthropodal cancer that would devastate everything if you didn't get right on it', and Cat has troubles galore.
Cat's lucky in one way, because her mother Ottilie is a force of nature. When Cat needs her mom, Ottilie hops on a plane and hurries to Florida, which isn't always easy with hurricanes and flight changes.
Ottilie is most often home in California though, where she struggles to be environmentally conscious and bemoans the increasingly dire drought. Ottilie starts to rear mealworms and to host beehives, while she severely limits water use. Eventually Ottilie limits herself to one three-minute shower a week, 'wet the hair, twist off the faucet, lather up, then turn it back on for a quick rinse....and forget the hair conditioner.' Ottilie also does her best to help her grown son Cooper, who has troubles of his own.
Cooper is doing his Ph.D. research on monarch butterflies, which are becoming increasingly scarce. This year, Cooper has seen precious few of the lepidopterans, 'which was beyond worrisome, considering they were reaching the point of no return, one more species sinking into the void.'
Monarch Butterflies
In fact all insects seem to be enduring a crisis, with a mass disappearance of many types. For Cooper, this signals 'the food chain imperiled, the world in collapse....doom atop doom.' Besides that, Cooper experiences personal troubles, one of which begins when he's helping his girlfriend Mari, a science nerd who studies ticks.
Tick
Cooper's fellow researcher Elytra, who does research on kissing bugs, does have a suggestion to curb climate change.
Kissing Bug
Elytra posits, 'The solution [to global warming] is simple,' she says. 'You go up twelve miles in a fleet of jets and spray sulfuric acid, which combines with water vapor to form sulfate aerosols to reflect sunlight back into space.' But this notion infuriates Cooper, who calls the idea delusional.
Geoengineering with sulfates would produce a white sky
I won't say more to avoid spoilers, but there's plenty of drama - and some comedy - in the book.
The story is compelling, and Boyle does a good job bringing home the (possibly) horrific consequences of human despoliation of the earth. Some of the main characters, however, are not especially likable, with a tendency to be selfish, and to dull their lives with alcohol. The story seems very realistic though, and I highly recommend the book to interested readers.
Thanks to Netgalley, T.C. Boyle, and W.W. Norton & Company for a copy of the manuscript.
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