The Morningside by Téa Obreht is set in a post-climate change near-future in a partial drowned city called Island City (maybe Manhattan?) that is accepting refugees to repopulate the city with promises of newly constructed/renovated homes for those who come to work. The novel is a mostly successful mix of genres, a sort of magical realist/cli-fi Harriet the Spy if Harriet were also a refugee.

Our main character is eleven-year-old Sylvia, who has arrived with her mother in the titular rundown high-rise where Sylvia’s Aunt Ena works as the super (there is a frame and the tale is told as a flashback from adult Sylvia’s perspective, but 90% is from the eleven-year-old POV). Sylvia knows next to nothing about her family’s past (including what happened to her father) thanks to her mother’s closed-mouth, focus-on-the-pragmatic day to day of survival viewpoint (which includes never speaking their home tongue outside their apartment). Aunt Ena though is just the opposite, regaling Sylvia not just with old family stories but also legends from the old country, including ones involving a powerful spirit/near-god knows as a Vila. For reasons, Ena and later Sylvia are convinced the old woman (from the same country as Sylvia) who lives in the Morningside’s penthouse with her “three behemoth hounds” is in fact a Vila, and the dogs are actually men that Bezi Duras has transformed into animals. Sylvia, and eventually another young girl who moves into the building, make it their mission to reveal the truth about Duras to the world (thus the Harriet reference).

The home country clearly suffered some sort of traumatic disaster beyond the global climate change that uprooted tens/hundreds of thousands if not millions, and her mother and aunt point Sylvia toward two differing ways of dealing with that kind of past. For her mother, the answer was to wall off the past and live by a strict set of rules in the present: “Never ask a question in writing … words committed to paper could haunt you forever. Don’t keep pictures or records for more than a year … Don’t reveal where you’re from … Say you don’t remember anything before that.” Ena, though, “kept the past in full abundant view. Pictures, cards, pamphlets.” Most of those pictures were of her recently deceased wife, whose belongings were still so present in the apartment that “you got the sense, looking around, that she had just stepped out and was due back any second.” As Sylvia puts it, “if the past had previously felt like a forbidden room, briefly glimpsed as my mother was shutting its door, here was Ena, holding the door wide. I could see all of it, any part, and linger as long as I liked.” The universal nature of this disruption and longing and trauma is enhanced by how Sylvia’s homeland is just “back home” and her first language is simply “ours.”

For me the refugee element was the most captivating and moving: the longing for an old, passed world at war with the ruthlessly relentless attempt to start afresh in a new one; the split between leaving behind one’s culture of stories and language and customs the aching desire to retain all that has made you you. The inevitable intergenerational conflicts. The way Sylvia doesn’t speak of the impact of her past directly but how the reader’s heart breaks watching her lay out little home crafted, found-object “protections” around the home to keep her and her mom safe. Every element of that storyline is near-perfect.

I also enjoyed the attempts to suss out Bezi Duras, which was nicely balanced between moments of strong tension and fear and lighter, more humorous ones, and which also added in a nicely depicted classic YA-type of relationship between two girls forming a new friendship and trying to find their way around their start differences in personality. Less successful for me was another plotline, one that eventually merged with the main one, involving an older man — Lewis May — with a mysterious past.

The prose is sharp throughout, whether Obreht is offering up pinpoint moments of characterization, vividly depicting the post-climate-change world of Island City, waxing lyrical and/or offering up an original metaphor or simile. On a sentence level, the novel was a pleasure to read. I’m also a sucker for stories about stories/storytelling, so there’s that going for it as well. All of which makes The Morningside an easy recommendation.

In this great big complicated world that we inhabit, how is it that we define ourselves? How do we recognize the self we hold so dear? Is our place and purpose in this world determined by what we do? Or by what we say? Or perhaps, is it accomplished through what others say about what we have said or done? Is it possible that the myths, customs, legends, and stories of times past and present that have the most influence?

In true Téa Obreht fashion, "The Morningside" is a dreamlike tale, equal parts dystopian and apocalyptic, that attempts to answer those and many other questions of culture, class, racism, and the almost mythological intertwining of all of those.

Set in a not so distant time, divisiveness, suspicion, and climate-driven catastrophes have made daily life harder for all people. While some folks struggle to survive from day to day, others cling to the trappings of things, places and people who are no more. Each desperately hold onto hopes and dreams that their old life promised, but which have little chance in the now to see come to fruition.

Alive with a diverse cast of saints and sinners, as well as dreamers and doers, "The Morningside" is a beautifully written novel that I highly recommend. My thanks to author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel. (Apologies for failing to complete it prior to its March 19, 2024 publish date. Life!)

#TheMorningside
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What a great book. I've never read a Téa Obreht novel before (somewhere in my memory, I've come across a short story), and I'm glad I finally got to her.

THE MORNINGSIDE concerns a mother and daughter who live in the last upscale apartment building on their island, where the mother works as the super. They live in a not so distant future, where the tides are ever-encroaching and natural disasters cause population displacement around the world. The daughter does not know much about her past, or her mother's, but the unusual people around their building mix in her head with half-known folk tales, which sets a series of too-real events in motion. Is magic involved? Or is it a girl's magical thinking? What does everyday environmental trauma do to a person? How might we feel in control? But what if...?

There's a lot to consider here, and I like that the book does not offer easy resolutions. Well worth the read.

The Morningside by Téa Obreht
Is a magical realism, futuristic novel about a mother and daughter who have escaped climate change disaster and settled in The Morningside; a building of long ago lavishness that survives in an ever flooding Island City on the edge of what is habitable. I thought the world was captivating, however, I thought the pacing of the story was odd. It seemed to take a very long time to get to the main conflict. I did love Sil, and thought her mothers silence on their background very intriguing. The end of the novel does bring everything back around and ties up loose ends, but the time jump was a bit disorienting. Overall 3/5 stars for this one.

I just finished a NetGalley copy of this book and found it wholly intriguing through the entirety of the book. The plot was beautifully laid out and kept you guessing where it was going to go. The characters - oh man the characters are so beautifully written and detailed. You can tell the love the author had for these characters and their journeys. I highly recommend this meticulously plotted and magical book.

Post apocalyptic fantasy/magical realism. I think I would have enjoyed more had there been so many dramatic parts that seemed to fizzle and not be all that connected. It made it difficult to get to the meat of book’s theme. I tend to love a coming of age story so that bumped this up a bit.

I REALLY wanted to like this one, it sounded right up my alley, but unfortunately I just didn't. It felt like wannabe Emily St. John Mandel, which feels harsh to say but is the best way I know how to describe it. About 15% in I decided to put it down and move on. If I hear enough rave reviews from trusted readers, I might come back to it.

A novel of climate change brought to life through the lens of magical realism. A very good debut offering. I highly recommend.

Our narrator, eleven year old Silvia, arrives with her mother in the disintegrating Island City, in an environment slowly being consumed by rising waters. The feeling is unsettling. Unfamiliar. They are from "Back Home", the "old country", which is never named. Countries and cities are fictional (as far as I can tell). They are staying with an aunt in The Morningside, a high-rise apartment building where Aunt Ena is the caretaker. They land in Island City as part of a dystopian "Repopulation Program".

Silvia explores The Morningside, helping her aunt with chores and upkeep. The eerie setting lends itself to mystery. What is really happening at The Morningside? Who is the mystery woman up in the penthouse? What's up with her dogs? Why is Silvia forbidden to speak "Our language" outside of the home? Who is the Drowned City Dispatcher?

Obreht weaves stories into her story. The Morningside is a book about stories, telling stories, fairy tales, family history. Mothers and daughters. Homes and families. I let myself get lost in this story, not knowing where it was going, but confident in Obreht's ability to navigate us across the pages. Mesmerizing. And it's funny. Silvia's eleven years old!

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

I was not in the headspace for this book. I wanted to read it, I was interested in the book every time I picked it up. But once I put it down, I wasn’t thrilled to get back into that world. Once I was there, I remembered how beautiful it was but in between I remembered the feelings it evoked. Beautifully written and worth the read.

1, 2, 3 could it be coming of age in a world submerged and drowning in the what’s to come. I hadn’t read any Tea Obreht but plan to read The Tigers Wife and Inland. She invokes deep thoughts into our being.

More like 3.5*
In a not-so-distant future, eleven-year-old Silvia arrives in Island City, accompanied by her mother, both candidates of a federal repopulation program to revive the city. Part of Island City is flooded, as is most of the world. Silvia and her mother have come from “Back Home”, via a circuitous route that took them through several city-states along Silvia’s short life. She has been instructed by her mother to never speak “Ours”, especially not in front of strangers, and never utter word of the places they have lived in. Since Sil’s mother is secretive, bordered on reticent, Silvia doesn’t fully grasp the reach of what has been asked of her, but she will soon find out.

Upon arrival in Island City, with the purpose of staying put, Silvia discovers that they have another living relative, her aunt Ena, who has worked for ten years as a superintendent at The Morningside—a thirty-three-story building with a century-old history of catering to rich residents of upper-island. Nowadays, the tower is in decay mode. Since the repopulation program does not guarantee immediate school enrollment, Silvia is left to explore the building and help her aunt, then her mother, with maintenance duties. It is during one of those times that she spies Bezi Duras, the resident of the tower’s penthouse, in a compromising manner that exposes one of Bezi’s closely guarded secrets. Henceforth, Silvia will obsess over Bezi to the point of endangering hers and her mother’s newfound way of life.

Having had The Tiger Wife, Tea Obreht’s debut novel, languishing on my TBR for years, and after having enjoyed her sophomore novel Inland a great deal, both of which have elements of European folklore seamlessly incorporated into the story, I was more than willing to give The Morningside my undivided attention. I found it a bit uneven, with traces of brilliance but much unrealized potential.

The Morningside is set in a dystopian future where most of the world has undergone famine and war due to rising seas and climate catastrophe. Island City, a place that resembles Manhattan closely, has dealt with all those issues, but the few original inhabitants of the city still harbor the ideal that the place can be reclaimed from the sea provided the right leader comes along to make things right. The repopulation program has been set up so people from afar can come to live where the old residents no longer want to. Life is hard for most people. There are austerity measures in place, including a Food Rationing card for every family. Eating meat is illegal, as are most luxury goods, though there exists an underground market (economy) that provides them to the right kind of people. Those austerity measures won’t be strange to those who lived behind the Iron Curtain and its satellites, communism being its own form of dystopia, and Tea Obreht borrows freely from it, and as liberally as she can having emerged on the other side of it. Other notable borrowed elements of her home country’s history are the folklore—a nice touch with the story being so dark most of the time—, and the bit about the war criminal who orchestrated disappearances “Back Home”, which happened in the late 1990s during the Balkan War.

The Morningside has a flowy, page-turning narrative. Tea Obreht sure can write. She can make the mundane interesting, though, unfortunately, there’s a lot of the mundane in this book about the end-of-the-world. Most of the characters aren’t interested enough, which is a flaw in a book that is, for the most part, character-driven. Silvia, Lewis May, and Bezi were the highest points of this novel. I liked their story arcs.

Aside from being easy to read, I found The Morningside an uneven novel. However, I’m more than willing to read whatever Tea Obreht comes up with next.

Thanks to the publisher for granting me access to a free digital copy via Netgalley.

Here’s a fun fact: When I lived in Toronto, Canada, as a toddler, the street I grew up on was named Morningside Avenue. So, I must admit that the reason I chose this book for review was because of that. Surely, I felt, I could revel in some kind of nostalgia for my innocent youth before I became something of a hellraiser as a pre-teen. Well, as it would turn out, The Morningside is a novel about nostalgia, but of the unremembered kind. The book is set in the world after a war and climate change has decimated it, and its characters have gone through unspeakable horrors as a result. What is remembered is the stuff of sentimentality, it turns out: boys rapping in the streets and getting free apricots from fruit vendors as a child. However, I’m perhaps getting ahead of myself. The Morningside, as written by author Téa Obreht, is a kind of magic realist fable of the life of an 11-year-old girl named Silvia. Told from her point-of-view, the novel is a meditation on death and resurrection, and of fantasies that take the place of harsh realities.

The book is set in the near future in a burg called Island City (that does, indeed, sit on an island). Silvia and her mother have settled in a run-down apartment building called the Morningside as part of a repopulation program for refugees needing homes in a decimated environment. Silvia’s mother (why does this remind me of a Dr. Hook song?) takes a job as the building’s superintendent while Sil herself awaits word on what school she will attend (if any). Any bits of information Sil has about her mother’s past life come from her aunt Ena, who regales Silvia with tales of her family and life in the city that are folksy. Ena tells Silvia, for instance, that the mysterious woman named Bezi Duras, who lives on the penthouse floor and how leaves with her dogs every night, is a witch who turns her dogs into men during the day. When Ena dies (early in the book), Silvia takes it upon herself to find out if the tales are true, with seemingly disastrous results. In the process, she befriends a Black gentleman and a girl about her age who moves into the Morningside and seems willing to unlock its secrets with Sil.

On the surface, The Morningside scans as one of those books meant just for me. I’m a big fan of magic realist fiction or anything that’s a little slipstream or weird — and to that end, this novel doesn’t disappoint. However, it might have been a tad too weird for my liking. The book doesn’t start to cohere until its final quarter, at which point the tone that takes over is a bit on the sentimental and sorrowful side. It’s the ending that makes The Morningside what it is (and, don’t worry, I’m going to try to not say too much about it to not spoil it). The other thing that niggles at me is that Silvia is presented as someone who is an old soul: she comes across as too scheming to be a true 11-year-old and her lies and her interior thoughts appear to be the mark of someone much older. (That said, the entire novel is told as a giant flashback, so there’s that.) Yet another niggling thing is that the novel is set in near future Manhattan, which I didn’t see at all — I imagined it taking place off the western coast of Florida for some reason, so this should have been brought up in the novel proper and not the publicity notes. Still, some will be enchanted by this tale, which is about unlikely friendships and the gruesome effects of a changing environment — and the effects that have on human behaviour. There’s a lot that could be unpacked about the book, but doing so risks spoiling it. And this is a book that works best knowing as little about it as possible before reading it. (So what are you doing reading me? Go out and peruse this title for yourself! Well, okay, I’m kidding there. Kind of. Sort of.)

All in all, The Morningside will make readers nostalgic for a world they weren’t even born into, even if that’s a world sometimes fraught with pain and hardship. This is a novel about navigating life in the face of human-made disaster, even if some of that human-made disaster is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. It turns out there’s a reason why certain stories aren’t told to Silvia and why fantasies may be all that will be bequeathed to her. However, again, I may be saying too much there. At the end of the day, there’s a lot of thought that went into the construction of the world of The Morningside, and you can see why its author won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction. It takes verve for someone to tell a story such as this and make it work, and while this does have its deficiencies (but doesn’t every novel?), there is some crackling good storytelling going on by the novel’s close. If you like speculative fiction that doesn’t fall too hard on the speculative side, you’ll probably enjoy this. At least, as much as I did. Now I suppose I’ll go back to thinking about my early childhood and living on a certain street!

I loved loved loved this heart-warming story from Tea Obreht. The beautiful prose and the enchanting imagery had me in thrall. Eleven-year-old Silvia stole my heart. The story is told in the voice of Sil who has recently moved with her mother to an exclusive tower called The Morningside in Island City. Uprooted from her home, craving for her family and friends, she busies herself exploring the tower and its residents. The novel is based in a dystopian world ravaged by climate change, but the references suggest that Morningside could well be based in future Manhattan. The water levels have risen, basements and low-lying areas are flooded and uninhabitable, much of the flora and fauna are extinct. The Government has introduced a Repopulation program to attract refugees from other countries into the Island city. Sil and her mother are beneficiaries of said program. I loved getting into Syl's head. Tea Obreht perfectly captures the feelings, the sense of adventure, the childlike curiosity, and the childish anxieties of an eleven-year-old without sounding over the top. I loved the magical realism and the folklore. I also loved the mystery surrounding the characters Bezi Duras and May. The ending was something else altogether. Can't stop gushing!!. All in all, an original, entertaining, easy read which has me craving for the author's other works.

Thank you Netgalley, Ramdom House Publishing and Tea Obreht for the ARC.

When Silvia and her mother arrive at the Morningside to move in with her aunt as part of the Repopulation Program the apartment tower is well past its glory days. Most of the city’s original residents have fled to avoid rising tides and eroding land. Against the dystopian backdrop of a city slowly falling into the sea and rationed food where meat is no longer consumed, eleven year old Sil meets a unique cast of characters including Aunt Ena who feeds her magical tales. The radio is always on and the Dispatcher is taking calls about the goings on in the community and creating connection among people who are otherwise fairly isolated. Shortly after arriving Sil catches a glimpse of her neighbor Bezi Duras that raises questions and starts her on a path of sleuthing that brings back the past and changes the course of her future.

What I appreciate most about this novel is how Obreht explores identity within the context of displacement using magical realism and dystopian elements coupled with a child as the central character. Silvia and those around her navigate a world where the past is always present; Silvia is seeking it and her mother is hiding it. There is an ever present fear and need to hide who they are. At the same time, there are glimmers of hope, joy, connection. Even when there are cracks in the facades the characters have so carefully created, their lives continue and they find ways to believe, just a little, in the impossible.

This is billed as magical realism which can be hit or miss for me, but the line Obreht draws between reality and magical elements that are fairytale or fable like worked for me because they are reasonable figments of an eleven year old’s imagination. This coupled with the dystopian setting was a perfect combination for my taste. Not too overbearing but an element that played well into what was happening for Silvia and the larger themes of the novel.

Ultimately I enjoyed this story and am interested to check out Obreht’s other work.

Thank you @atrandomhouse @netgalley for the #gifted ARCs

11 year old Silvia and her mother are climate refugees who have been bouncing from country to country until they arrive at the former great metropolis, Island City, which resembles Manhattan now ravaged by floods. They move to the Morningside, a decaying high rise complex that had once been the jewel of the upper-city neighborhood known as Battle Hill. Silvia and her mother are part of an immigration program that the administration of Obreht’s fictional unnamed society is promoting to prevent urban abandonment. Those who participate in the Repopulation Program receive rations and are promised a single-family home in the future.

Silvia’s mother is committed to obscuring their origins. There were no records, no pictures and she did not make plans “because plans required belief.” She is fearless of the physical risks of her job as a salvage diver, but is terrified of the past. In contrast, Silvia’s Aunt Ena, the superintendent of the Morningside, “kept the past in full, abundant view. Pictures, cards, pamphlets.” Before Aunt Ena could divulge all of her knowledge to Silvia, she died. “My mother couldn’t even wait until Ena was cold in the ground before she started slamming the doors to all the spaces of the past where I had only just gained admittance.”

Silvia is lonely and isolated waiting for an opening so that she can attend school. Curious, like a post-apocalyptic, pre-teen Nancy Drew, Silvia is particularly drawn to Bezi Duras, the mysterious woman who lives in the penthouse with her 3 enormous dogs (Ena said that they were not dogs but, rather, men during the day and dogs at night). Bezi, like Silvia, was from Back Home, but she had come to Island City years ago and so could scarcely say five words of “Ours, and then only in a disgraceful accent.” Silvia thinks she is the Vila, a spirit of the mountain with a proclivity for mischief and three sons who could shapeshift. Silvia elicits the assistance of others, including Lewis Allen May Osmond (“Lamb”), a disgraced writer, who calls Silvia “Snoopy,” but offers to exchange a key to Bezi’s private elevator for the personal correspondence that he left behind when he departed from the Morningside.

Obreht is a natural storyteller who has crafted an atmospheric and inventive novel that is set in a not-to-distant future where conflict and climate change have upended society. The novel is helmed by a spunky protagonist, is replete with fantastical elements, but remains grounded in a potential reality. Although the world Obreht envisions is one of sorrow, there remains hope.

There's so much going on in this book. The main character and her mother flee instability in their native land to an unnamed, flooded city. The city has attracted immigrants by promising resettlement and security, but the main characters find that those promises are mainly empty. They are stuck superintending the Morningside, a crumbling luxury building, as well as taking on other dangerous odd jobs. There's also some magical realism going on, including a possible "monster" residing in the building. Added to all this is a general milieu of climate anxiety, a decaying world, classicism, and traumatic pasts. Oh, and not to mention another plotline that doesn't really reveal itself until well into the book-- a serious crime that the main characters may or may not have been involved in! Really, there's a lot going on, and it all mainly works in one way or another, though I never had a strong sense of where the book was going at any particular point!

After escaping her home with her mother, Silvia comes to live with her aunt, the superintendent of the Morningside, an aging luxury high rise in Island City, a city that once was booming but now is slowly deteriorating and sinking into the water. Silvia’s mother refuses to speak about their past and Silvia does not know why they had to run nor is she allowed to speak to anyone about where they came from. Silvia becomes obsessed with the enigmatic resident of the penthouse and her possibly magical dogs and garden, and she and the only other girl in the building, Mila, attempt to discover her secrets. But Silvia and her mom’s own secrets are exposed when Mila’s mysterious father eventually shows up.

This one was a bit weird but very good. There is a lot going on, it’s a bit dystopian, there are family secrets and drama, and a touch of magic/mythology. Regardless, it was beautifully written and the story kept me engaged. I thought that even with an almost fairytale-like and surreal quality to the story, the characters and their interrelationship dynamics were still exceptionally realistic and vivid. It took me a day to process my thoughts, but when I came back to write my review I felt really good about this one and I think it will stick with me for a while.

4.25

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC to review

It is always a good day when one has a Tea Obreht book to read. I know of no other author that has that magical story-telling ability that I only ever found in Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "Morningside" was an absolute treat, stories within stories, and a girl trying to learn who she is when her world has fallen apart. The mystery of the 'old lady in the tower,' and the lovely prose kept me turning the pages. Ultimately, Tea Obreht's books are magic, and one never leaves, or turns the last page, disappointed. Highly recommended and a worthy novel by a very talented author!

5 stars

What a smart, thoughtful, captivating book about the worlds and communities we build!

This is the story of an eleven-year-old girl, Silvia (Sil), who arrives with her mother in a partially flooded island city as a climate and war refugee. While living in a once-grand apartment building called The Morningside, Silvia struggles to connect with her closed-off mother, her native country’s history and folklore, her adoptive nation’s expectations of her, and the few friends she starts to make in her new home. Throughout the story she attempts to discover whether her neighbor, an elderly painter with three enormous dogs, is really all she seems, or if she is actually a powerful witch or spirit called a Vila.

This is a novel about the connections between people, the stories we tell about others and ourselves and how they contribute to our belonging in a place, a time, or a community. Sil feels isolated, spending months as the only child in her building, and desperately longs for some sense of connection to the people or places she has touched. Her aunt is full of stories she can hardly believe, and her mother hardly tells her anything; both women went through significant trauma in Silvia’s birth country and have very different relationships with its memory, each of which impacts Silvia’s own attempts to understand her connection to it.

The story is deceptively slow-paced, conversational and meandering, unraveling secrets and teasing what’s real and what’s not. However, I found myself quickly absorbed, and finished within two days.

The Morningside is a beautiful, fantastic (in the Todorovian sense), playful, serious, and deeply affecting work of near-future fiction, about choosing how to interact with the past and the world around us. I can’t promise you will like the book, but I can promise that you won’t finish it unchanged.