The selection of Charlotte McConaghy’s novel “Migrations” as this year’s One Read selection has sparked a lot of conversations in the community around the intersection of climate change and literature. There’s no shortage of books in the Cli Fi genre. Like love and loss, climate is a topic that shapes the lives of everyone on the planet. Of course it makes its way into fiction.
“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler was published in 1993 and set the standard for many works that followed. It follows the journeys of a highly empathetic young woman named Lauren as her efforts to help her immediate community expand into a mission to rebuild the very underpinnings of society into a more just and sustainable form. In this work, Butler managed to write a story that was both post-apocalyptic and visionary.
The same thread of hope among devastation runs through
Kim Stanley Robinson’s book, “The Ministry for the Future.” The book begins with a scene of people experiencing horrific impacts of record heat, yet progresses to a place of resilience as humanity learns to work together. The plot contains several threads and characters but centers on two — Frank, an aide worker who survived the heat catastrophe only to be scarred for life, and Mary, leader of the Ministry for the Future, an international coalition tasked with looking out for the welfare of generations to come.
In “Heat and Light” Jennifer Haigh takes us into a hard-scrabble former coal mining community where neighbors must grapple with the ramifications of the promise of new wealth brought in by fracking. Parts of this book were breathtaking — a nostalgic description of the beloved woods where children play, followed starkly by a discussion of the equipment that will be used to clear the area for drilling. The story prompted me to learn more about fracking, which is something important fiction can do.
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers is a book I haven’t stopped thinking about for five years. Powers draws the reader into the individual narratives of several different people, each of them influenced in some way by trees. Their paths converge as they all come to see, in their own ways, what is being lost to the world. Though trees get a starring role, the major theme is the interconnectedness of all things.
For more climate fiction, see our catalog list.
