I quite liked this book at the start, and found myself pulled back to it until the very end, at which point I honestly lost touch with the narrative.

This novel follows an unnamed narrator as she navigates a world that somewhat resembles our own, but suffers from frequent earthquake-type events. I’ve never experienced an earthquake, but the descriptions in this book also made me think of the land actually appearing to move like water. Does this happen? Either way, we experience this difficult-to-move-in terrain through the mind of the narrator. She’s of unknown age, but you also know she can’t be very young or very old, as she is nearing the end of her acting career (this is the best description of where she is in life) but also discover she is navigating life with a new disability. A very existential (and queer at times) XXX life crisis if you will.

Let’s not forget, included in her stream of consciousness are interruptions by visitors but most importantly, her desire to kill her roommate Tala. Whom she also…loves? But Tala is actually missing, and what she means by “kill” Tala starts to blur in its definition as this search goes on.

This is a very interior novel, in the way that you can imagine you are in the mind and body of someone else, but also their memories and pain and sensations. It reminded me a lot in this aspect “Elena Knows” by Claudia Pinẽiro; in this case, the more time our narrator spends in her home alone, the more she withdraws into her mind and body. The mother in “Elena Knows” withdrew into her past and her mind became the central setting, as her physical world was limited to the journey she took that day.

Kinda esoteric and philosophical, which is normally my stuff, but the blur between the novel’s reality and the narrator’s interior world lost me.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Catapult/Counterpoint Press/Soft Skull for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
An Earthquake is A Shaking of the Surface of the Earth releases November 19, 2024

A seismic event leaves the world shattered, with a ground that is in constant motion.

Our unnamed narrator, plagued with self-doubt and desire, wants what her roommate has, and the only reasonable way to get what she wants is to kill her. So when her roommate disappears, she’s forced to leave the confines of their home and put all her hours of planning to use.

<i>“I’ve long understood I’m not perfect. That the only answer to an imperfect life would be a perfect death. […] I could wish to wish to die, but I could not wish to die. But what if the perfect death doesn’t have to be mine?”</I>

The narrative wasn’t very streamlined, especially not towards the dark desires of actually finding Tara, and I fear I was unable to grasp the underlying message that was being conveyed.