‘Inland’: Rising Seas and No Service

May 16, 2024 by Amanda Hagood

Kate Risse’s new novel, Inland (June 2024, 12 Willows Press) pictures one woman’s difficult question to reunite her family in a world of rapidly rising seas.
Amanda Hagood

In the world of climate change fiction – that is, stories, novels, and films in which the climate crisis is a central element – Florida is a hot topic. Our particular vulnerability to intensifying storms and our alarming sea level rise projections have inspired recent titles such as Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate and Cooper Levy-Baker’s Dead Fish Wind. Into that field comes Kate Risse’s Inland (June 2024, 12 Willows Press), a sobering meditation on the fragility – and the resilience – of the ties that bind us in the face of crisis.

The Road Home

Inland begins in far-flung Dog Island, off the coast of Carrabelle in the Florida Panhandle. As waters rise, Juliette tries to persuade her mother to abandon her beachside house and return with her to Boston. So begins a 1,300 mile journey. Along the way are snake bites, armed gangs, collapsing emergency services, and – everywhere – flood waters that don’t seem to recede. Meanwhile, Juliette tries desperately to keep her connection with her son Billy, riding out the same catastrophe alone in their home, through her failing smartphone. There’s just one catch. Smartphones are now illegal, banned by the government only months before due to their mysterious associations with cancer. Will this fragile link ever bring them back together?

In terms of speculative fiction, Inland throws a lot at its readers. The cause of the sudden, widespread flooding is never fully explained, though it seems to be connected to the slowing of thermohaline circulation in the northern Atlantic – the same climate change impact at the heart of Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster film The Day After Tomorrow. Similarly, we never fully understand the prohibition on smartphones. Though it’s clear that the many challenges we know they pose to us today have come to a head. While potentially confusing for readers, these deep uncertainties give the story a visceral impact. We are as lost, as vulnerable as the characters themselves when things begin to fall apart.

Losing Touch

While a fuzzy uncertainty clouds the world Inland’s players must navigate, the novel is crystal clear and perfectly poignant in questioning a major force shaping our contemporary lives: smart phones. Teenaged Billy is addicted to his phone and Juliette clings to hers as her anchor to a fast-eroding home. So much of the story revolves around consulting, concealing, chiding, guarding, and pining for these tiny, life-changing machines. Inland exposes not just how dependent we’ve become on our phones for our news, views, and sense of direction, but also the dubious proxy for connection and community they – and by extension, the telecommunications network– have provided. 

In one telling scene, Juliet encourages Billy to cross the flooded street outside their home. Next door, two surviving neighbors are present. But he seems reluctant to grasp this hopeful possibility, and not just because of the dangerous current. Painfully recalling his screen time posture of glazed-over eyes and permanently downward-angled neck, she speculates. “If he had an online relationship with these girls before the Ban, maybe staring at their house now and seeing them through a rectangular window feels perfectly detached, distantly present in their lives. No need to talk face-to-face.” 

Where We Land

What have we as a society lost in giving so much of our relationships over to this virtual presence? Inland asks. How will we sustain ourselves when the Information Superhighway closes for repairs? 

As the story inches toward a reunion, readers may find themselves frustrated by the novel’s subtle and surprising ending. You won’t get the cathartic, disaster-ending closure you’re seeking. But instead, you’ll find a small step toward accepting a different, climate-altered future with something like hope. And with the scale of the challenges we are facing in the global climate crisis, it might be fair to say: hope comes first.

Awards:

Reader’s Choice Awards – Bronze – 2024

Reviews: