The Morningside - Téa Obreht
If you were tasked with the creation of a story that combines the genres of dystopia, magical realism, and even some mystery, how would you go about it?
Téa Obreht manages this feat wonderfully in "The Morningside" by taking the reader into a world changed forever due to climate change. Sil, the 11-year-old protagonist, tries to make sense of her new home that's a remnant of a flooded metropolis from the world before. She and her mother moved away from their country of origin to join Sil’s aunt Eda in Island City, a place that brings to mind a dystopian Manhattan.
Eda seems to find her internal answers to the ever-changing new world in folklore that very much hints at a Balkan or Eastern European family heritage. The mythical stories Eda tells her niece serve to fill the void that young Sil experiences in her lonely new environment where a reliable schooling system has not been established.
Sil sets out to solve one of the folklore mysteries Eda hints at just before she dies. A woman that lives in her building has two dogs that apparently shapeshift into humans by day.
Sil's efforts are not welcomed by her mother, who unlike Eda tries very hard to leave the past and the old country behind. And so it is that a coming of age conflict between mother and daughter unfolds that eventually comes to a head when it becomes clear that the past will always be part of the present, but not always in the ways we might like.
I enjoyed reading this story for its wonderful writing above anything. The author beautifully visualizes the world she builds. Island City and its dilapidated buildings appear so special despite the dystopian reality.
"To the South, the buildings, stacked shoulder to shoulder like coffins, the pale roofs with their vandalized water towers. [...] To the West, the endless park, black with trees, and beyond it the hazy smear of the bay."
"You couldn't tell if a wire had come loose or if the building just needed a minute to pull itself together. In such instances it was advisable to wait before touching anything, to listen for the exhalation of those dense, rust-streaked basement walls."
I was struggling a bit with the mystery - I wasn’t entirely sure if my interpretation of the ending was “correct”. It appeared to me that Sil's discovery on the book's last page, decades after her search for the truth behind the two dogs, tied in with the folklore about a daughter’s imprisonment, brought on by the Vila’s wrath. I am fairly certain that that's what the author was trying to do, but questions remain, and some loose ends could presumably be tied up a little more in detail.
Ultimately, this is a beautiful character-driven work of literary fiction. A mother-daughter story. A story of resilience, of overcoming. A story on the failures of humanity, expressed via the case of climate change, and how we try to forge on despite knowing deep inside that we've already dug our own demise by ignoring the signs for too long.
"Why does every step we take forward have to be followed up with some predictably human setback. It's like we don't know the fight is already over or something."
Thank you Téa Obreht for putting your soul into this beautiful work of art. It really shows. 🤍
Thank you Netgalley and Random House for the Advance Reader's Copy. The opportunity to review literature means the world to me. This book is set to come out on March 19, 2024.
