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For fans of Station Eleven and The Ministry for the Future, this richly imaginative, immersive, and “electrifyingly relevant” (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author) climate utopia novel follows a family navigating a crisis both personal and political, illuminating humanity’s capacity for change. What happens after we save the world? In the near future, humanity hasn’t avoided the worst of climate change—wildfires, rising oceans, mass migration, and skyrocketing inequality have become the daily reality. But just as everything is collapsing, remarkably, a movement of workers, migrants, and refugees inspires the world to band together, save the planet, and rebuild a society for all. This is The Great Transition. Teenager Emi Vargas was born into a utopia, compared to the world known by previous generations. Her parents have suffered and sacrificed, playing pivotal roles in rebuilding society, but now, in quieter times, their marriage is deteriorating. When Emi’s mother goes missing amidst renewed political upheaval, Emi’s illusion of comfort and safety is shattered. Alternating between Emi’s suspenseful search for her mother and a jaw-dropping rendering of The Great Transition itself as Emi’s mother and father battle the devastation brought by climate change, help save the planet, and fall in love, The Great Transition is a heartrending story of one family that unfolds against the backdrop of a harrowing, but, ultimately, hopeful commentary on our future.

A Novel

The Great Transition

Lindsay

I promise my future self to remember that if you tell your kid how lucky she is, it never makes her feel lucky. It makes her feel terrible. Like it’s her fault for being lucky, and her fault for needing to be told all the time how lucky she is, and how everyone has sacrificed everything so she can continue being so lucky without knowing how lucky she is.

The ocean was not the only problem. The problem was everywhere and everything. Not even one million years of evolution have prepared our brains to deal with something so encompassing as that. What our brains are very good at is focusing on the chaos immediately at hand.

Lobsters molt, he said. You know that. You’ve seen it. They crawl out of their old shells. It’s how they grow. By losing. So I say okay— I can build up my armor till it’s so thick I can’t move. That’s one way. Or I shed my old skin. Drop my armor. Make some breathing room. Free myself to grow.

Every decision that destroyed our planet was made by individuals who knew precisely what they were doing. We can never forget that, okay?

I don’t know what age is the right age to open the book of your life to your child.

But here is the thing about the future, I told Emi— the thing that previous generations did not realize until it was too late: The future is always waiting. Not just waiting but on its way.

You come apart then you put yourself back together. That is life.

I read about the great mass movements. The Zapatistas. Harriet Tubman and John Brown. Toussaint Louverture. The African National Congress. The First Nations. The Black Panthers. The Long March. And economics, too. The Mondragon Cooperatives. Smith. Marx. Keynes.

They were sick themselves. The entire system was. Everything back then, it was built to dehumanize. From the top down. The borders. The economy. How else could the destroying classes keep such immense wealth to themselves? By convincing everyone below them that there was someone yet further below—to punch down instead of striking up to lop off the head. Cruelty was the point.

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