鈥淏lue Skies鈥 by T.C. Boyle (Liveright)
There have been entire shelves of non-fiction books written about climate change. I鈥檝e reviewed quite a few. They鈥檙e packed with truly frightening scenarios based on science. But somehow none of them are quite as devastating as T.C. Boyle鈥檚 latest novel, 鈥淏lue Skies.鈥
Set in a not-too-distant future, 鈥淏lue Skies" is a work of fiction that begins with the premise: How will humans really react when their day-to-day lives are impacted by climate change? Boyle鈥檚 answer: They won鈥檛. Much. Yes, if they live in almost-underwater Florida like Cat, the daughter in the book, they鈥檒l fight back the ever-creeping mold in their house on stilts and pilot a boat to their kid鈥檚 pre-school. And if they鈥檙e an entomologist like Cat鈥檚 brother, Cooper, they鈥檒l cover all their exposed skin and work outdoors in the dangerous California sun, trying to collect data on why all the insects are dying.
But all that, argues Boyle, won鈥檛 stop horrible things from happening to these people. To go into greater detail spoils the 鈥渇un鈥 of this darkly comic novel. Cat and Cooper鈥檚 mom is given a sedative by her husband when she hears about Cooper鈥檚 fate, which she reluctantly takes 鈥渁s if she could鈥 pretend life was all blue skies and sunshine.鈥
The point of Boyle鈥檚 satire, of course, is that she can鈥檛. No one can. Climate change is already here and to expect enough humans to change their ways to significantly mitigate the impact is laughable. So as the book鈥檚 characters continue to fly from Florida to California for family milestones like weddings and childbirths that become increasingly more grotesque, readers are treated to snippets in the news about a global refugee crisis and a defunct mall being retrofitted with row upon row of carbon dioxide-scrubbing plants. It all seems so very plausible outside the pages of the book. Humanity, in the end, is like the insects Cooper studies 鈥 we鈥檙e resilient, we adapt 鈥 but the problem, as Cooper himself admits, is that there are trillions more bugs than humans.
And yet just before Boyle drives his characters over the edge, he eases off the accelerator long enough to find a little hope. Readers will have to wait until the final pages to feel it, but if along the way they鈥檙e convinced by a novel to eat more plants or drive an electric vehicle, 鈥淏lue Skies鈥 could be a very influential book indeed.
