Tilt
“Don’t you feel excited at all?” he asks.
I take a breath, try to find the words. Who could be excited for the apocalypse?
Annie is 37-weeks pregnant, belatedly buying a crib at IKEA on her first day of maternity leave when the hypothesized Cascadia earthquake hits. She does the only thing she can do, and tries to make her way across the decimated city of Portland, Oregon in search of her husband, Dom. But the quote above is not in reference to the quake, it’s about the cataclysmic shift Annie knows will come with becoming a mother—apocalypse sounds about right. Tilt is a story of survival and the transition into motherhood through the lens of a devastating natural disaster.
The story is told in the first-person, a conversation between Annie and her unborn child. She thinks to Bean all her worst anxieties and fears about becoming a mom. She feels the ache of the loss of her own mother. She recalls her earliest days with Dom and their most recent argument, marital tension between duty and responsibility and keeping dreams alive. She wonders, how will I do this without my own mother? How will I do this if I never see my husband again? How will I do this without cell phone service, YouTube tutorials, Alexa? HOW when the world turns upside down?
I loved this. I was teary-eyed from about 60% through to the very end. Annie’s character is vulnerable and terrified. The novel could feel like it has a lot of loose ends, but I didn’t need the plot to “resolve.” I didn’t need it because something more important happens: Annie resolves something in herself. From late morning to just before midnight on a single day, she journeys to a place of fierce protectiveness and acceptance of her coming role as mother. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
Read this book. That is all.
A few favorite quotes:
Interested in a luxurious, buttery hardcover of this book? Aardvark Book Club had this as a monthly selection. For US residents, the code SPLASH will get you your first book for $4. Then add this one on for $9.99.
If you want to earn me a free credit, email me to say you signed up and I can talk to the powers that be. 😉
