When I was six months pregnant, I became obsessed with the Cascadia earthquake. What if I went into labor during the earthquake? What if the roof fell on me? What if my husband got stuck on the other side of the river and had to swim home? Was he a strong enough swimmer?
As you can imagine, it was a grim baby shower. But at least now my friends and family all know about the risk of gas explosions.
The problem with fear is that it’s like a painful scab that you’re desperate to be rid of, but you can’t stop picking at it. Well-intentioned therapists and internet randoms will tell you (they certainly told me!) to try to stop thinking about it, to avoid reading about it. But maybe there’s a wisdom in that impulse, to keep clawing at the thing that hurts, trying to find some resolution. After all, nobody is afraid of the thing they think they’re afraid of. I wasn’t actually afraid of the earthquake. I was afraid of this strange thing growing inside of me, a baby, and I was afraid of being out of control and I was afraid of being vulnerable and having to depend on other people, and I was afraid of the thing every human is ultimately afraid of: loving someone who will one day die.
I spent my whole pregnancy with my body tensed, bracing for the shaking that never came. Then one day, during a harrowing trip to IKEA, a large truck shook the building and I panicked, thinking that the earthquake was finally happening. When the shaking stopped, I had a light-bulb inspiration for a novel: a very pregnant woman at IKEA when the earthquake hits. How will she get home? Who will help her? What will she do to protect her child? How can she learn to bear the pain of loving someone who will one day die?
The following books are the books I read, during the height of my fear, and also during the years I spent writing my novel, Tilt. They are all earthquake books. There will be shaking, I promise you. But they are books that ask big questions, difficult questions. They are asking about human connection, about regret, about why some groups suffer when others buy their way out of suffering, about how we can live through the unbearable and somehow bear it.
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What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy
This book is dedicated to “the 250,000 to 300,000 individuals estimated to have perished in the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti.” It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking book told through the stories of ten people. Chancy does an incredible job of showing the totality of the destruction and the horror of the aftermath. She also doesn’t shy away from talking about class and race and capitalist imperialism in a way that I found refreshing. Fair warning to parents, the first story is a doozy.
Full-Rip 9.0 by Sandi Doughton
A journalist friend recommended this book to me one day when I was agonizing about how to realistically show the earthquake in my novel, and it became my bible for Cascadia-related research. It’s written by the science reporter from The Seattle Times and it’s a deep dive into what will be the biggest earthquake in the continental US, and the scientists that are trying to figure out where and when and how big this earthquake will be. A really impressive feat of reporting and so well-written that I felt like I couldn’t stop turning the pages.
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Oh, what to say about this strange and remarkable book?! This highly-lauded collection of short stories takes place just following the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan. This is less of a focus on the shaking and more of an examination of the spiritual and mystical aspects of living through disaster and losing loved ones. Highly recommend if you’re craving something surreal and philosophical. There’s a talking frog. Just read it.
One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni
A group of people are sitting in a passport and visa office in some generic building. Then an earthquake hits, trapping them together. Then water starts rushing in. Are you anxious yet? But somehow, this novel manages to be both thrilling and also deeply human. The group goes around and starts telling stories from their lives, “one amazing thing” that they’ve never told anyone before. A really unique book.
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
Was I expecting to write about Palestine in a round-up of books about earthquakes? No. But here we are. With Here I Am. This book is not only an exploration of an unhappy marriage, it is also a nuanced look at the relationship that American Jews have to Israel. A catastrophic earthquake hits Israel, inciting war and threatening to wipe the country off the map. Buckle up for some uncomfortable conversations around Zionism, Jewish safety, and Israeli brutality. While it’s frustrating that Foer doesn’t address the apartheid or oppression of Palestinians, this book still has much to offer the current moment.
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina
This book is based on a real “wind” phone in Japan, which is a disconnected phone in a little phone booth that people used after the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan to connect with their loved ones. This is a beautiful and haunting book, but a quiet book, one that is a reflection on grief, but also on healing.
An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth by Anna Moschovakis
A strange earthquake leaves the ground continuously shaking and shifting, and the narrator of this book is struggling to walk. This strange novel is less about earthquakes and more a psychological unraveling, but I found it refreshing how the story refused to give in to narrative norms and instead charted something wholly unique. The author is a poet, so yeah, IYKYK.
“The Really Big One” by Kathryn Schultz
This isn’t a novel. This isn’t even a book. But it won the Pulitzer and that’s all I’m going to say. My favorite thing about this article is that everyone who reads it will tell you where they were sitting when they read it. It dissects your life into “before I read TBO” and “after I read TBO.” Also, If you live in the Pacific Northwest, this essay will either give you nightmares or make you move.
Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen
Do we read books by The Great American Misogynist? Idk anymore. This book, despite being written in the 90s, is an incredibly engaging examination of so many themes we’re dealing with right now: corporate greed and ecological devastation and abortion rights and personal responsibility. The man may not like Twitter, or women, but he sure can write. If you’re keen to check it out but don’t want to give your money to Franzen, get it from the library!
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
If you’re into historical fiction and strangers whose lives end up intertwined, this book is for you! It’s set during the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco and follows three women as they navigate the destruction, but also has a backstory that involves family secrets, female solidarity, and the kind of fresh start that can only come from an earth-shattering event.
