The Past Is Red is a new novel from Catherynne M. Valente, who has a penchant for producing clever, thoughtful stories, with strong messages, human characters, and the sort of prose that makes you sit up and take notice. I’m happy to report that this tendency continues here. The Past Is Red is a rather good book, and a damn fine story.

Before I delve into it any more though, it’s worth noting that a portion of it has turned up as a novella before, in Strahan’s Drowned Worlds collection, and more recently, as the standalone The Future is Blue. So if you get an odd sense of deja-vu for the first section of the book, don’t worry, you’re not alone. That said, even as a re-read, the first section is an enjoyable and incisive commentary on climate change, on humanity, and the choices that we make on a personal and systemic level – and it pairs beautifully with the rest of the text, making something new, and greater than when read on its own.

This is a quiet story, and a story that speaks truth. It’s the story of a young woman, who lives on an island made of garbage. That’s humanity now. Scattered enclaves on a blue marble, living in the detritus of a civilisation which has literally sunk without trace. Every scattered, broken doll, every pill bottle, every broken CD player has its place, as a means of exchange, as a trinket, as a totem, as a home. It’s a world built on the ruins of what we have built, and a world built on the traceless remains of what we destroyed. Modernity is known simply as “The Fuckwits”, and if the people of the garbage heap are sometimes violent, sometimes cruel, they are still a people of love and generosity as well. And a people of betrayal, and old hatreds, yes. People. And this is the future, on a soundless ball of blue, scrabbling in what’s left.

And of course, some of them hate it. Some of them look at what was and what they live within, and live a dream of hope, of something else, of difference. Of land. And then there’s Tetley, our protagonist. Tetley knows that what there is, is all there is. She knows that the people of garbage island are there to stay. She knows that this is all there is. And she loves it, and is fierce in her affection, and passionate acceptance that this is all there is. Tetley is passionate and fierce and young. Tetley is kind and generous and in love. And Tetley is true to herself. As a character, she is pitch perfect. A person shaped by pressures that we cannot know, in an environment we can barely comprehend, but recognisably a person, doing their fragile best in an often hostile world. You can see Tetley, feel her conviction and her tracery of pain and the sheer joy that burns through her. She’s strange and wonderful and human.

As are those around her, those guttering flames of humanity standing in a world surrounded by lapping waves. They’re everything we are, shaped by what we do. They are our grandchildren and our future, and the indictment cast back upon us by all of them, from the most sympathetic to the least, is searing. There is power in these words, in what they say and the quiet spaces in between. Tetley is the future, and the past is us, the past is red.

I don’t want to spoil the plot, though I will note that the second part occurs some time after the first. Tetley the girl is replaced by someone more weary, more contained perhaps, but with that humanity, that potential to reach for anything and also to be satisfied with who and what she is, that makes this such a wonderful character piece. Because that’s what we have here, a woman traversing her world, and making choices that leave her true to herself. And sometimes those choices may change the world, for her, or for everyone else.

In any case, this is a beautifully crafted story, and one which sat with me for days afterward, as I mulled on Tetley and her rights and wrongs. It’s a warning and a truth and a call to humanity to be people. It’s a good book, and a damn fine story, and you should read it.

This was such a weird and interesting read. Even though it goes through 3 different periods of Tetley's life, it really does read like it is two distinct sections. There's a reason for that, as the author describes in her afterword.

The first half of this novel was a short story that appeared in an anthology. It was written before the 2016 election. The second half is a much less optimistic piece that was written after the 2016 election. Unlike the first half, which starts where Tetley is 9 years old and then goes to when she's 17, the whole of the second section takes place while Tetley is 29 years old.

The weird thing for me is that, all the way through this 20 year period, the voice of the first person narrator is... kind of the same. I realise that this is a character who is uneducated as, after the end of the world, where most people she knows are sailing around on floating garbage, there's no such thing as schools. So Tetley's language doesn't evolve like one might expect from an adult in our world. This likely was deliberate, but it was strange.

A big thing that happens between first and second parts of this book is described but never actually shown. Tetley is despised for actions she took against the idea that there was solid land, which would lead those around her to uselessly use their remaining resources on a false hope. The fact that we don't actually see this happening really does lead to us wondering whether Tetley was reasonable in the act that she took that effected the life of so many around her.

Tetley is a self admitted unreliable narrator. At times, she branches into things that she wishes had happened, such as last words with her twin. This sometimes makes it difficult to read what is true and what is her dream version of things. I did, however, love the return of Goodnight Moon in the latter part of this book, and the brief backstory of what he had gone through while we'd been focusing on Tetley.

The Past is Red tells the story of a world swallowed by water. In which they find mementos of times passed drifting by as life rafts. The ways that humanity is able to survive from ashes and remains, from literal trash. But our concept of life is, in some ways, irreparably changed, while motives like greed, manipulation, and love remain central to who we are. Where The Past is Red got me is in the world building. All these questions about how life as we know it changes.

The ways language is susceptible to change and (mis)use. How we make sense of families, loyalty, and community afloat. And then The Past is Red morphs into a story about hope. How intoxicating hope can be, how manipulating it can be. It seems to shimmer before our eyes like a mirage, beckoning from momentarily gilded hands. Showing us a glimpse of a future that could be ours.

Set on Earth after an apocalyptic environmental event has wiped out all land and condemned the survivors to float the seas endlessly, The Past is Red is a difficult but rewarding novella. We follow along with an unreliable narrator, trying to piece together what happened, the life she is leading, and the life she would like to lead. There's so much in here - about what is means to have hope and faith while still living in reality; about the kindness of living a lie and the horror of confronting the truth; about the human need for connection that can even overlook endless cruelty; how space and time and calamity cannot change basic human nature.

It's a deeply unsettling, violence-forward book that is not for everyone - but it deals with violent subjects that we choose to overlook and will be rewarding for those who can deal not just with the physical violence of this story but the emotional devastation that envelops it.

Valente's continues to be a unique voice and this is a book I will re-read many times before I unlock all its secrets.

Summary
Tetley Abednego lives on the only solid surface around - Garbagetown, formed from a great patch of garbage in what used to be the Pacific, but is now just one big world ocean. She's a girl with principles and determination, and when she acts to save Garbagetown's resources from waste, she's willing to pay the price, with a smile on her face.
Review

My average book rating is just about 3.0, and I sometimes wonder how that is, when I feel I’m giving so many books 2 or 2.5 star ratings. The answer is books like this one.

I know little about Catherynne Valente; I liked one of her stories in an anthology once, and have read one or two others. Still, I’ve heard the name often enough that I was interested to pick up this novella. While it’s technically in two parts, they read as an integrated whole.

Tetley Abednego, the protagonist of the book, has a fun, but unusual voice, and I feared I’d tire of it before the end of the book, but I never did (here, the book’s short span may work in its favor). She’s a relentless optimist in a truly trashy world, and – aside from a muddled sequence here or there – a delight to spend time with, even when very bad things are happening to and around her. The central romantic element of the story doesn’t quite work, and the love interest’s back story doesn’t quite make sense, but the story as a whole does work and does make sense, largely due to Tetley’s quirky personality.

Valente has envisioned a depressing world, but her protagonist is so upbeat that you tend to forget about it, in part because – as Valente points out in an afterword – this is the world Tetley knows and accepts. The fact that it’s a world devastated by ‘fuckwits’ (that’s us) doesn’t really bother her.

In short, this is a fun book. Read it. I’ve got some more of Valente’s writing on my TBR shelf, and I’m looking forward to getting it down.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

The Past Is Red was a pretty cool and quick read, but it wasn't really for me. The premise was interesting and the amount of detail and world-building, especially for a novella, was excellent! Valente painted a vivid picture of life post-humans ruining everything and it was pretty fun reading about how people made a home out of what was left.

That said, some of the execution was at times confusing and I'm sure quite a bit of the social commentary just went over my head. The writing style was really super mega not my favorite and that did impact my reading experience and comprehension. There was a lot of emotion in it, though, and Tetley's perspective was sweet and utterly heartbreaking.

Catherynne M Valente's latest work, which is really a combination of a previous story, The Future is Blue, with it's sequel, The Past is Red, asks a question of it's readers. What will happen to humanity when we finally destroy the earth?

Pretty heavy stuff that in the hands of some other writer could possibly turn preachy and trite, but in Valente's more than capable hands, this book is neither of those things. There are big questions asked here and dire warnings issued for those who want to see them. It isn't even subtext, it is text. However, Valente manages to keep the readers going because she is such a gifted storyteller. At times, I laughed out loud and three sentences later I had to take a break because I was uncomfortable and I had to sit with what I was reading.

The hero of these stories, Tetley Abednego, is honestly one of the most likeable and trustworthy narrators I have stumbled across in some time. She tells us her ugly, horrible truths all the time and in doing so, we can't help but love her.

This is one of those books that will sit with you for a long time when you close the back cover.

I received this ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Please, preorder this book now!

This book was bizarre (in a good way). It was my first Cat Valente book, and it certainly has me curious to read more of her stuff. I’d call it almost, but not quite, a New Weird dystopia. Throw in a completely nonlinear approach to telling the story, along with some episodes where the narrator tells you what she would have *liked* to have happened (but doesn’t specify that until afterwards), and the whole thing left my head spinning in a manner reminiscent of *Catch-22*.

It’s set in the future, when the Earth has warmed and the seas have risen to the point where the entire surface has been covered with water. Our protagonist is Tetley (named after the tea), a resident of Garbagetown. Garbagetown is a floating island made of literal trash, where people survive on the remnants of the civilization that wrecked the planet. Tetley is an optimist, a very happy person (she insists) and life in Garbagetown is just *amazing* even if no one appreciates it like her, especially all her neighbors who regularly beat her and whom she then has to thank for their instruction.

This book is chock full of social commentary on consumer culture, broadly defined. I certainly felt keenly aware that I was reading the book on my Kindle, or sometimes my phone if it was more convenient, in a comfortably air conditioned house. The literal trash of our society is enough to sustain Garbagetown for generations. And yet the citizens of Garbagetown have learned very little. They dream of a future where dry land will emerge, and where they can all have plenty of food and air conditioning and gerbils and medicine and cars and jacuzzis (most of them aren’t sure what a jacuzzi is, but it sure sounds nice). As Valente said in the afterward, “The oceans can erase our cities, but they cannot drown our existential malaise. That shit’s waterproof.”

The cover quotes Ken Liu as calling this book “The *Candide* of our #@$*%?! age,” and I think that’s a better comparison than anything I can come up with.

"The Past Is Red" is a phenomenal exploration of climate change. In it, the author imagines a future in which the Earth as we know it has long been submerged as a result of global warming.

When the sea swallowed the land, most surviving humans took refuge on a giant, floating patch of trash known as Garbagetown. Our narrator, Tetley Abednego, is born generations after this event takes place, and as a result, she is entirely accustomed to life in Garbagetown. The strange, post-apocalyptic domain she inhabits is at once horrible and beautiful, and we, as readers, are introduced to both of these aspects through Tetley's eyes. Tetley herself is an extremely likeable character, and her personal journey is so interesting to follow.
This novel is satirical, witty, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Valente really captures what it means to be human.

"The Past Is Red" was one of my most anticipated reads for 2021. It exceeded my expectations by far, and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know. I'm so grateful to Tor and Netgalley for granting me access to the e-arc.

Catherynne M. Valente writes beautifully and has such a knack for wit, and this book contains both beauty and wit in equal measure. For something so ugly - a post-apocalypse world, drowned by climate change, leaving survivors stranded on mega-islands of garbage floating in the oceans - I am astounded by how lovely the writing was and how thoughtfully frightening the concepts about the planet and humanity were. This book has many difficult things - parental hatred, displacement and homelessness, sanctioned abuse - but it has some lovely moments about what it means to be hopeful, whether hope can come from small places, as well as big picture stuff, and about connectivity and finding place. The afterward by the author was especially illuminating, as she mentions that Jonathan Strahan asked her to write a story to include in the anthology "Drowned Worlds," to which her contribution was "The Future is Blue." This story is apparently a continuation of a story connected to Tetley, exploring the world she created in that original story, further here in this novella. I haven't read that anthology or story, but this story, "The Past is Read," brought to mind elements of "Waterworld" (without the Mad Max style battles, just the existing in a world of water), as well as elements of "The Drowned World" by J. G. Ballard (which is a magnificently throbbing, humid, desperate, and bleak contemplative novella, but I love it haha).

But this book, "The Past is Read," is wholly unique with Valente's wit and ability to paint an entire place so in detail in such brief text. I loved that we seem to follow different segments of Tetley's life, from some of her childhood memories and how she "found" her name, to her exile, to her connections with another person and the amazing addition of technology and AI. I also LOVED that one of her best buds is an elephant seal named Big Bargains. The imagery she paints is also really interesting, from the idea that there were "sorters" of the original Garbagetown creators, who just sorted stuff, so areas are named by descriptors of that stuff. For example, Tetley grew up in Candle Hole, a place where all manner of scented wax candles were piled, and people melted/molded the wax into homes. There's also areas full of electronics, pills and needles, trophies, just all manner of human belongings, discarded to the waters that now cover the Earth.

"Catherynne M. Valente, the bestselling and award-winning creator of Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland returns with The Past is Red, the enchanting, dark, funny, angry story of a girl who made two terrible mistakes: she told the truth and she dared to love the world.

The future is blue. Endless blue…except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.

Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected."

Cat Valente equals must buy.

An odd but truly delightful, and surprising book of post apocalypse science fiction. This was unlike anything else I’ve read before and I found it to be lots of fun. Recommended for larger library collections.

This was weird and dark, and sometimes different to follow, but fans of post-apocalyptic cli-fi will enjoy this story of one brave girl who keeps on loving what's left of humanity.

I’d heard it said by many that Catherynne M. Valente’s writing was polarizing; you either love it or hate it. With my tastes, that’s exactly the thing to say to intrigue me. So I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up Deathless a few months ago and found that I came down on the side of loving it. Then, upon receiving an e-arc of The Past is Red, I was pleasantly surprised again to find that it wasn’t just a fluke, a specific combination of tropes and devices I love in Deathless that grasped my attention and dragged me along to a satisfyingly vague conclusion, but that the actual writing, the meat and bones of the storytelling, was wonderfully suited to my taste. Even as I was reading it I found myself thinking, “I don’t see how it’s so divisive. It’s just normal. Sure there’s a quirky line here and there but I can’t see how it possibly merits the ire I’ve seen it receive.” But then I realized it’s the distinctive, decisiveness of the writing itself that makes me feel this way. Because when you read prose that truly connects with you, reading feels like gliding. Effortless. Immersive. I don’t find myself skipping to see how many pages are left in a chapter. I don’t do mental math to figure out how much I’d have to read that day to finish it in a reasonable manner. I just read. I’m so happy to have found another author who’s writing does that for me in Valennte and am so grateful to have had the opportunity to read this spunky little story prior to its release. A complicated female heroine I adored, imaginative and immersive setting, simultaneously hilarious and devastating world building exploring the mounting monstrous effects of climate change (a subject I usually have to avoid as it makes my skin crawl, even in fictional settings). All held together with just enough plot to give this meandering, insightful look at the human condition another satisfyingly vague (or maybe vaguely satisfying) conclusion.
Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Once again, Catherynne Valente knocks it out of the park with The Past is Red. Written with the satire of Jonathan Swift, the boundless hope of Voltaire’s Candide, and Valente’s own incredible imagination, Tetley navigates us through the remnants of Earth that the so-called Fuckwits have carelessly left behind. Full of hope and redemption in a post apocalyptic world where humans are living on islands of sorted garbage. Recommended for fans of Valente, climate fiction, and satire.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this digital advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't realise this had been part of an anthology previously but I enjoyed it nonetheless! A very important book about climate change and the impact of humanity on the world told in an exhilirating and creative way! The chapter titles made me laugh too!

I haven’t cried this much while reading a book in years. It’s odd, the book isn’t necessarily written in a very sad way, but it absolutely destroyed me. I’m having a hard time writing this review without tearing up. It’s just so horribly depressingly beautiful. Obviously the first thing the book shows is how we are destroying our planet right now. This book takes place after all the land has disappeared under the rising sea waters, and the only people who are left live on floating garbage piles. And since floating garbage piles already exist now I have zero hope that we can halt the destruction of our earth. This is the only life that Tetley has ever known, and she is full of hope and brightness and love. Even after her actions turn all of Garbagetown against her. The book also illustrates the resourcefulness and ingenuity of humans (although that might be part of our problem right now). When presented with a pile of garbage they figure out uses for just about everything. As an example, Tetley grows up in Candle Hole, a neighborhood where all of the candles on the garbage heap have been melted and formed into homes. All of Garbagetown is dedicated to neighborhoods like this, they are all segregated by the type of garbage gathered there. Oh, and they say prayers to St. Oscar (who is green and lives in a metal can 😊). At times reading this almost feels like the Wizard of Oz, in that their language is largely formed from pop-culture and advertising of the past.

This is the 100th book I have read so far this year, and for sure it will be one of, if not the, favorite book of the year. I lack the words to describe how much this book affected me. If you’ll excuse me I have to go cry some more. Thank you for my instruction.

Thank you to NetGalley & Macmillan-Tor/Forge for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

DNF at 30%

I appreciate the uniqueness of the concept and Catherynne M. Valente's writing style, however this just isn't the book for me. There was nothing particularly wrong about the story, it just didn't pique my interest and I lost the motivation to continue reading it pretty early on. Might pick this up in the future, but for now it just doesn't work for me. It would be unfair of me to give this book a lower rating than 3 stars as I did find things in the first 30% that I liked, but that's the highest rating that I could give it at the moment.

Tetley is a child of Garbagetown, the floating rubbish island that humanity strapped together to survive on as the waters rose over the rest of the planet. Tetley resents the Fuckwits--the humans who ruined the world before--but she doesn't resent Garbagetown. Garbagetown is the most beautiful place on the earth, and Tetley will fight for it. With that summary done, can I say: Wow. I know Valente wrote this in 2019, but so many lines in this book resonate deep reading it in 2021. I found myself underlining every line Tetley had about the uselessness of wanting things to go back to 'normal', to how they were, before the world ended and a new one began. Reading The Past Is Red may start out as a soliloquy of all we're doing wrong to the planet now, but it ends as a communion on our potential for survival and what hope really means.

The Past Is Red tells the story of a girl just trying to live her life on a giant pile of trash. Well, massive. No, Texas-sized would be more appropriate. She's pretty hated for some reason, but it's alright. Until it isn't.

I was absolutely enamored by this book. On the surface, there's a "haha! trash island, so quirky!" feel to it. But when you actually open up those trash bags and get a look at the contents inside, there's a treasure trove of emotions waiting for you. The prose has a way of staying focused on the girl (well, she is the narrator after all) while still allowing us to see what the world is like. And it's not pretty. Outside of the trash island, that is. That place is teeming with beauty; you'd think so if you grew up there. If you go down that street just over there, you'll be greeted by the sounds of people screaming at and sometimes beating a girl who fucking ruined everything for everyone. Oh! And just around the corner, you'll see two young people Romeo & Juliet-ing it up with their gas masks on. Don't forget the loneliness of the girl a few blocks down! Actually, scratch that. She has a couple of animals and a plant. She's fine. Probably.

If you want to be punched.... Sorry, it's been a while since I last talked to people, and apparently people don't want to be punched?? Ohh! If you want a book that packs a punch (I don't know if I'd want to live in Punch Pack Lane myself, it sounds unpleasant) in a small space, The Past Is Red is definitely for you. Seriously speaking (I can be! I promise!), though, this book was so so good.