A growing number of people find the idea of bringing a child into the world a fraught decision, because of both the world the child might inherit, and their potential impact on a struggling world. A recent spate of articles on the subject of childbearing in the context of a climate crisis reveals how widespread this feeling has become. Terms like “anti-natalist,” and groups like BirthStrike, are becoming more mainstream. Yet, children like Greta Thunberg are also being applauded for their leadership and held up as symbols of hope. So much so that Ms. Thunberg felt compelled to chastise the older generation for this at the United Nations. It is not uncommon for people to burden children with hopes and fears for the future. As anxiety about the future increases, so does this burden.
This dilemma is at the heart of Eleanor Davis’ graphic novel, “The Hard Tomorrow,” a low-key and intimate story set in a very plausible near-future. The book centers on Johnny and Hannah, a young couple who are living off the grid outside Louisville, Kentucky in a camper as they try to build a house by winter. They are also trying to have a baby. Johnny is a stoner whose sole job seems to be to get their house built. Hannah works as a home health aid. She’s also an activist involved in street protests and organizational meetings of an organization called Humans Against All Violence. It’s through these two, and a few people in their orbit, that we get a picture of the world they live in.
Their world should be very familiar to most readers, but there are ominous differences. Mark Zuckerberg is President of the United States of America (yep!). Plants are growing in areas where they wouldn’t have survived before, because the plant hardiness zones have shifted, and some sort of blight is felling oak trees. These details are shared subtly. This isn’t speculative fiction that requires extensive world building or lots of exposition. Things get more ominous as the paranoid theories of Johnny’s friend, Tyler, are revealed to be pretty accurate. Mass arrests of activist groups start right around the time Hannah learns that she is finally pregnant.
“The Hard Tomorrow” doesn’t offer any easy answers about the question of bringing a child into a failing world, but it beautifully evokes the promises and perils entwined in that decision. Ironically, perhaps the biggest emotional gut-punch in the book is not a part of the story, but in the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book:
“Thank you, in advance, to the person I hope to give birth to three months from when I write this. I look forward to meeting you. I don’t know what your future will look like. I hope you will forgive us for bringing you into this beautiful and terrible world.”
