Above the Ether takes place the day after tomorrow, or so it seems. An earthquake in the gulf at the same time as a hurricane creates an epic wave that devours the gulf coast. Never-ending fires render communities unlivable. Drought devastates farmland. Dandelions and mollusks and nature in general seems to have run amok. Eric Barnes describes a dystopic future that is only a tick of the clock from our present, a future where the climate catastrophe we have done little to avoid arrives. And yet, Barnes does not use the word climate once. This is not a polemic, this is a story.

Above the Ether follows six narratives, a father and his kids fleeing the gulf, a husband and wife seeking their runaway son, a callous investor checking out the potential for disaster dividends, refugees finally getting their release from a border detention facility, carnival workers working their route, and a restaurant manager just doing his job as best he can. These disparate people move by happenstance and necessity toward an unnamed city where they converge in a crisis,  finding hope in the midst of despair.

Nothing and no one has a name. People are described solely by the roles. Every location is unnamed, leaving it to us to situate it in our own cultural geography. So why is it so compelling? Why did I read this in one sitting, skipping dinner and reading to the end? I think we value what we work for.

I remember being taught to put a notecard over the bottom third of the text while I was studying, covering the serifs that make reading easier. My professor explained that if I was forced to engage and infer while I was reading, I would remember what I studied better. He also said in the end, I would learn to read faster. He was right. There is this idea in pedagogy that instilling a “desirable difficulty” in the work makes it easier to remember. The concept of desirable difficulty might not be related to writing, but I think it captures the magic of Above the Ether.

It is as though Barnes took the writing advice of “show, don’t tell” to its ultimate expression. He won’t even tell us who is who and in some chapter fragments, it can be hard to tell. But that effort makes us more engaged. So much is unexplained, we must bring ourselves into the reading process. We cannot just sit back and read. We have to think while we read.

We care about these people because we have worked to know them and their situation. We understand the catastrophe because we had to integrate our own experience. Add to that, the prose that is as simple as a hymn and as musical. There is poetry on these pages as well as great understanding of humanity and compassion for the human condition.

Above the Ether is painful in many ways, especially since this dystopia seems inevitable given our desire to consume the inheritance of the next seven generations all in one. It feels grounded in the reality of likely outcomes and human potential.

Above the Ether will be released June 11th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.