In a future, climate-ravaged San Francisco, it’s been raining non-stop for seven years. The roads are now rivers, so rooftops have been repurposed for retail.
Forty-year-old Bo lives in an apartment in an area populated by Chinese Americans. Her cousin, Jenson, has left for Canada, and wants her to join him and his family. Bo is torn. She knows leaving the devastation makes perfect sense, but her mother was lost in a storm and Bo believes if she stays, her mother will be found. Jenson urges her to leave and arranges for a boat to collect her. Bo, however, receives a note asking for help from another resident, Mia – aged 130 (!) – and she decides staying is more important.
Bo is ostensibly an artist but in this dystopia, she feels art is ‘frivolous and meaningless’. She has, however, found a calling caring for the elderly. Mia is demanding, short-tempered, with a sharp tongue, and is dismissive of Bo’s attempts at cooking. Bo is calm, patient and dedicated. Mia’s age means that she is a living history of the city and its Chinese diaspora. The stories she tells trigger an artistic renaissance
in Bo.
Mia’s health is declining and her birthday is approaching. Bo wants to represent her life in art with collated photographs, but isn’t sure how. Eddie, her sometime lover, offers his drones as projectors. The stunning result enables Bo to tell ‘a new story of place’.
Kwan’s writing is tight, her characters are beautifully rendered, and the expression of art on the page is expertly delivered. Awake in a Floating City is a magnificent debut novel that explores familial relationships, ageing and dignified dying, and is a love song to a remembered San Francisco.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susanna Kwan is an artist and writer from San Francisco. Her work has been supported by fellowships from Kundiman, Storyknife, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, The Writers’ Grotto, and Vanderbilt University. Awake in the Floating City is her first novel.
She teaches writing with The Dream Side.
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