The Fortune Follies
by Catori Sarmiento
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Pub Date Aug 04 2020 | Archive Date Nov 16 2020
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Description
First place winner of the 2018 Cygnus Award in Science Fiction.
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After the end of World War Two, American society is recuperating from the human loss of war, an uneven social system, and a massive corporation that has caused a technological boom. Seeing a new opportunity, Sarah Igarashi departs from her home on the coast of Alaska to meet her cousin in Seattle where she stumbles to find her place in a new city filled with otherworldly technologies and ideals. Soon, Sarah finds herself drawn to a socialist cause and endeavors to propagate social change, even at the cost of her personal safety.
In contrast is Penelope Morgan, an outwardly confident sixteen-year-old who is quite comfortable navigating through a rapidly changing society while also pursuing a singing career. She lives somewhat comfortably with the remainder of the Igarashi family due to inheriting her parent's home and wealth. In her vigor to become a singer, she has agreed to assist her cousin George, his wife Catherine, and his father in their clandestine business ventures, often serving as an information courier in exchange for nightclub gigs. As Penny becomes more entwined in the criminal actions of the family business, she must make the choice between helping Sarah or achieving her dream.
However, in pursuing their own goals, each family member is met with outward and inward conflicts from familial deception to social upheaval and natural disasters.
Advance Praise
Awarding winning author Sarmiento was raised in the Pacific Northwest and has lived in Japan, so the settings and the diverse cultures of this fascinating fantasy are well within her ken. The most curious and attractive feature of her novel is that the plot is based around family failings and restarts, with the futuristic twists serving more as background and color for the personalities and their clashes and reconciliations. Instead of being "about" the new technologies that have changed the world for better or worse, as is generally the case in future fiction, The Fortune Follies is about people seeking comfort, safety, and some hope of success in an unpromising atmosphere of gloom and overarching avarice.
Japanese speech, characters, and culture provide a further layer of interest. The reader will see Penny's search for love, slowly warming her cold, arrogant exterior, while Sarah's determination to stop the greed machine will overcome her need for personal security. Though their differences are notable and a source of constant tension, both women find solace in music.
Sarmiento's broad vision makes this novel work, with careful and smart details as the treatment of immigrants and the poor still rankle in today's real America.
--Barbara Bamberger Scott, Chanticleer Book Reviews
