The plot involves - are you ready? - a scientist named Tony Pietrus whose book on undersea methane functions as the novel’s core text an activist named Kate Morris who makes headway toward combating ecological disaster by dint of undeniable magnetism and political savvy Ashir al-Hasan, a genius in predictive analytics who turns his intellect from sports betting toward the future of Earth’s habitability a once-famous actor who transitions into an ultra-right wing zealot under the moniker The Pastor an advertising executive who helps orchestrate the oil industry’s response to fossil-fuel opposition a recovering drug addict in rural Ohio who ends up an unwitting pawn in the climate war and the enigmatic leader of a hardcore eco-terror outfit called 6Degrees. Lydia Millet, whose latest novel, “A Children’s Bible,” tackled climate change, reads new fiction on climate and argues against calling it a genre. The redeeming merits of “The Deluge” call to mind those elaborate trick shot videos on social media in which the primary objective is missed but something else exciting occurs these are always captioned by the phrase “ failed successfully.”īooks Climate crisis is here so is climate fiction. His debut novel, “ Ohio,” took on a heavy subject (the opioid crisis), a large cast and a complex structure and ended up suffering from the same issues as its successor: characters subservient to theme. It’s a meta-memoir in the vein of Dave Eggers or Chuck Klosterman, and though it’s funny and clever at times, the conceit wears thin after almost 500 pages. His first book, the memoir “Publish This Book,” stemmed from Markley’s frustrations trying to sell a novel.

Markley is an immensely gifted novelist, but he set himself a nearly impossible task, which appears to be his MO. It is, if nothing else, an astonishing feat of procedural imagination, narrative construction and scientific acumen. Over nearly 900 pages, Markley moves methodically from 2013 to the 2040s, presenting a kaleidoscopic sampling of American citizenry, an unrelenting series of increasingly tragic events and an in-depth examination of the desperate corner into which the world has painted itself.

This is an accomplishment - in the way, for example, a city can be the best kind of character - but it also detracts from the novel’s humanity, as the people animating it are secondary to the concepts. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.Īlthough there are dozens of characters populating Stephen Markley’s second novel, “ The Deluge,” the real protagonist is America, and although numerous forces and foot soldiers undergird the story’s antagonist, the true villain is climate change.

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