I tried with this one. I love dystopian fiction, but I am not a fan of short stories. I thought this might be a good middle ground. Not so much. There were a lot of dark short stories that were kind of connected, but I lost track of the characters too easily. It was a stuggle and I'm at the point where reading books that are a struggle just aren't fun any more.

This was a speculative fiction that I thought was insightful and a bit hard to get through. It was very complicated but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Wow, this is one of my favorite books in recent memory. It's a series of short stories, all with (mostly) different characters, but they're interconnected and tell a story over the course of decades and centuries. It's...depressing as hell, because it's based around a deadly pandemic that targets mostly children, but somehow still hopeful and uplifting? It's complicated, and I have complicated feelings about it, but it was beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As I read How High We Go in the Dark, I was torn between loving it and just getting through, but this speculative fiction held constant surprises in how the author connects the chapters as the story progresses into the future. It felt a bit off the rails at times, but still intriguing enough to keep reading. I especially enjoyed the beginning and how the ending circled back to give more insight into the original characters. This was a very well-thought out book and worth a read.

I finished reading this book in October 2022 and now, in March of 2023 I still can't get it out of my head. A novel told as a collection of stories with each chapter taking place at a different time, place, and with characters that sometimes overlap or are connected in unusual ways, this is a stunning and sweeping feat by a debut novelist. Nagamatsu's visionary imagination contains multitudes and the universe he's created will stay with you long after you read the last page.

This is not an easy read but its a compelling one. Set against the backdrop of the Arctic pandemic, several short stories make up this dark, timely book. From a father hoping to reconnect with his lost daughter to a failed comedian hoping for a job his family can be proud of, the stories are very human and very real. Maybe not the most uplifting book but one that will keep you captivated.

I chose this as a book club selection for my library book club. I really liked it. Some vignettes I liked better than others and it got pretty weird at the very end. It made for a great discussion!

I DNF this one. It just went all over the place and was hard for me to follow. It wasn’t for me, but I could definitely see it being a great fit for someone else!

Catching up on the year’s previous releases is a double edged sword. It feels good to read something that so many people have already weighed in on, but said novel carries the baggage of having to live up to expectations. While I didn’t read any reviews of this next book until after I had finished it, the critical acclaim was unmissable. However, How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu, does not meet the hype and quickly reveals its repetitive and incurious exploration of humanity as it wades through the misery generated by a horrendous plague.

How High We Go In The Dark is a collection of stories as an arctic plague ravishes the old and the young. It starts with the excavation of a 30,000 year old corpse and a father continuing the work of his recently dead daughter. From there on, it is an ambitious, though ambiguous, jaunt through the 21st century as new normals are adapted to again and again. A euthanizing theme park to lull its children patrons into sleep before stopping their hearts. A scientist who has paternal tendencies to the talking pig who’s organs must be harvested to prolong lives. A robotic dog that houses the voice of one’s dead wife or mother. The stories are myriad and often follow someone as they cope with the death of a loved one in a world that is capitalizing on that grief through a growing funerary industry. Will humanity ever truly accept death?

I am coming hot off finishing this book; I have a lot of feelings about it, and most of them are frustrating. The first two stories captured my attention in a big way. Nagamatsu cleverly dealt with feelings of isolation and removal from one’s loved ones in weird and absurd settings. The arctic research center was mundane, filled with repeat viewings of stale movies and curt conversations as the father tried to continue his dead daughter’s work. The task at hand was itself too big to comprehend as the virus starts to reveal itself amongst the scientists. The awful dread that it could no longer be contained was captured, if not eloquently, then at least truthfully.

The real heartwrenching story, though, was its successor, as it followed a struggling comedian employed by a theme park designed to euthanize dying children. Never have I cried so early in a book as I did reading the last sentences of the chapter City of Laughter. Nagamatsu really nailed the feeling of an observer slowly realizing their own complicity, and fully accepting it as they enmesh themselves more and more within the life of their wards. His romance with the mother of a child dying from the plague while also being treated for possible cures was sad, painful, and honest. Mixed with the emotions of dealing with disappointed professionalized parents really made the story into a brew that will remain on the tip of my tongue for a long time.

Unfortunately, after the opening stories, I never really felt the same for the rest of the book. Each tale had a point of severance, a lingering doubt that filled the story’s protagonist’s mind. A lost or fading loved one, a disappointed parent or lover, a co-worker that slowly distanced themselves from a rot at the core dominated every story. These failed relationships then collided with the character’s perceived escape route, a new person to project their failings onto. A chance at redemption, to learn anew what they have forgotten. Once I found this pattern, it was hard not to see it. Every character became someone I wanted to scream at, because they all seemed to know they were the problem. That they could spend the time to work on their own shit, but chose instead to work on “saving humanity.” Whether it was a doctor falling head over heels for their patient in search of a cure while their marriage fell apart, a father replacing their dead son with a talking pig, or a funeral home worker replacing his dying mother with a chatty co-worker, they all had the same rhythm. It didn’t help that I read the entire book in a day, but I doubt it would have helped me to space it out.

The repetitive nature of the stories was not aided by the fact that most of the characters felt similar, regardless of their gender or circumstances (most were men). They all approached their problems with a similar degree of avoidance and often wrote letters to those they felt they wronged after their death. Rarely was there any form of conciliation between the various parties, the last word usually left with the one who has to bear the grief they’d spent their entire lives avoiding.

One of the recurring motifs through the stories is the return of death to everyday life and the small ways people are forced to deal with it. In some cases, this felt incredibly strong and dealt with in tangible and human ways. But more often, I felt pulled out by some of the remembrances. Granted, I have not dealt with much close death in my life, but I was not pulled into these characters’ lives and emotions. I didn’t feel the empathy or compassion as they dodged and weaved through their grief. It certainly was not helped by the fact that the growing funerary industry was barely touched. Sure, the characters were involved, but there wasn’t a deep exploration into rituals, observations or what “death” was to them. It was just sort of “oh, what if there was bitcoin, but for funerals?” or “what if skyscrapers became mausoleums?” and it left a sour taste in my mouth. I just wasn’t sure what Nagamatsu was trying to reveal about death other than our complete and utter abhorrence of it and the many ways it tangles itself within our lives.

I know this is a long and winding road of a review, but I walked away from this book with so many unanswered questions, and not the good introspective kind. I felt let down by most of the stories, even though I appreciated the unique Asian-American perspectives that Nagamatsu provided within them. The opening salvo prepared me for a series of heartbreaks that proved to be shadows of what was promised. I didn’t even get into the pop-cultural references that stung harder than they usually do, or how the last chapter felt like it completely undercut anything that I could have walked away from this book with. It had an odd mixture of Silicon Valley techno-optimism mixed with a despairing loss of agency that didn’t feel thematic. I came into the book with zero expectations beyond its enormous fountain of compassion, and I stepped away from it merely confused about who it was compassionate towards. Looking back, I think I was set up for an exploration of the complexities of grief, and how it manifests on a personal and societal level, and its lack of delivery left me hollow and embittered.

Rating: How High We Go In the Dark – 5.5/10
-Alex

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.

This book blew me away. There are some authors who, when you read their work, you can tell that they truly LOVE humans -- even in our darkest, smallest moments, they are standing by us. Nagamatsu is one of those writers. These sad and ultimately hopeful stories transcend genre and create a reading experience that lasts well beyond the last page.

You can read my full review of this book in the December 2021-January 2022 issue of The Brooklyn Rail.
Here's an excerpt:

Sequoia Nagamatsu’s (Where We go When All We Were Is Gone) is an absorbing and heartbreaking contemplation on the very nature of life, death, and what it means to be human. Stretching across eons and worlds, these stories provide the power of short narratives, while each builds on the larger text.

WOW, lots of thoughts come to mind when I think about this book! But it's better to keep it short and simple...

Read this if you like FUTURISTIC, DARK (but oddly relatable) plots that follow a cast of intricately linked characters over decades of time. Think Black Mirror episodes + Station Eleven vibes.

Dystopian drama at its best! Sequoia Nagamatsu weaves a brilliant narrative, and the parallels to the pandemic we just emerged from are immense. What a novel!

STUNNING!! This book was written so well. I don't often reread books, but will definitely do so with this one.

I didn't review this book, but did interview the author and publish an excerpt for an online feature covering the writing process. Here's the intro graf.

Sequoia Nagamatsu’s debut novel How High We Go in the Dark is the winter’s most ambitious science fiction book: a sequence of interlocked stories that’s drawn comparisons to sagas like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land. The story begins in a near-present, where an Arctic expedition accidentally releases a virus that makes people’s bodies mutate and shift form. Each story follows different characters further into the future, as the plague spreads and humanity evolves. These stories involve spaceships and robot dogs, death hotels and a euthanasia amusement park for sick children. And yet these are also down-to-earth stories about how people navigate their jobs and relationships, chase their crushes and worry about their kids, as they head into an unpredictable future.

I was immediately hooked reading this book — collection of stories? Some sections I could not put down — and others I was lost from the first paragraph. Still, I overall recommend it if you like Black Mirror and science fiction. The author did an amazing job world building — and had to build several worlds, too. Ultimately, I put off reading this one but I am so glad I eventually picked it up! 3.5 stars

This book is the most original thing I have read in a very long time. Told through interlocking stories in a post-pandemic world, it captivates and draws the reader in from the first sentence. I thoroughly enjoyed each chapter, and found it engaging as I tried to unravel the thread of the story. I highly recommend this book to any reader.

Beginning with scientists finding the body of a young girl who seems to share attributes with both Homo sapien and Neanderthal as well as genetic traits that are like a starfish or octopus. And worst of all, when she is brought to the surface, she unleashes a deadly virus. From there the book veers to an amusement park where children get one last day of fun before the virus kills them. Nagamatsu has a variety of characters, which voiced well in the audio version, but the story doesn’t go smoothy as the characters try to remember the past which is quickly disappearing and try to determine what their future will be. I found the book very depressing and while I made it to the end, where the book circles back to the beginning, but it’s not my kind of book.

Speculative and unique and stunning on so many levels. If I had my druthers, I'd make sure everyone reading this book had a buddy to discuss it with.

This is a book about dealing with a pandemic, families coming together and falling apart, exploring new horizons of science, and grief.

I found it terribly sad, slow, and mournful. I didn't enjoy the experience. But I'm sure that many people will love it and find it cathartic. It reminded me of watching the movie Contagion; undoubtedly well made, but the heavy subject matter stopped me from actually enjoying the ride.

The stories feel terribly real, the grief of the characters authentic. The stories in this book are short, but you get a sense of what each character is going through and what they care about. I would say that this book is less about the individual plots and more about the larger feeling. The feeling of dealing with disaster, of caring for the dead, of caring about the world.

A video review including this book is on my Youtube channel at https://youtu.be/FyK7hcbNrvc?t=2

Thanks to William Morrow and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.