Under the Eye of the Big Bird

July 15, 2024
Where does the human race go from here? This book is a radical answer to a dark question. This speculative, artful, and deeply confusing novel sketches out the end of the world while simultaneously positing nearly unthinkable solutions and grappling with fundamental questions about identity, evolution, memory, and individualism. Over 14 tangentially connected, sometimes intertwined stories set across generations, Kawakami infuses her ethereal fiction about future civilization with both scientific inquiry and an acute sense of wonder about the human condition. The opener, "Keepsakes," introduces the world on its way out, no longer sustainable by natural means. Humans are now cloned in factories and sourced from the DNA of animals as well as people. Designated caregivers called mothers raise children while watchers keep different communities isolated from one another. In "Narcissi" and "Green Garden," we learn the extent of the cloning involved and begin to meet outliers who don't fit in. While the science fiction concepts at play aren't as onerous as the long-spanning timelines in Iain Banks'The Culture or Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, there's no easy narrative arc here, either. We get a little more explanation in "Echoes": "As a result of multiple impacts and other catastrophic events, the human population was in free fall." But Jakob O'Neal and his partner, Ian Chen, have a plan to divide up the remaining human population in order to force evolution to do its job. Ironically, not much of this speculative future has to do with technology at all--in some timelines, rudimentary technology still exists, while in others, people start to develop inherent changes, among them photosynthesis, clairvoyance, and other superhuman abilities. Yet despite all these fantastic elements, Kawakami is more interested in people and their makeup, introducing a prophet in "The Miracle Worker" and the pains of love in the bookended stories "Love" and "Changes." A wild take on humanity's last stand and our flawed understanding of who we are.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 29, 2024
In this visionary speculative work from Kawakami (The Nakano Thrift Shop), set in a distant future where the human population has been devastated by an unknown cause, survivors have broken into small communities scattered across the globe. The remaining humans are overseen by clones called Watchers, who guide people’s development and reproduction, and are in turn assisted by AI-programmed cyborgs known as Mothers, who raise the clones and serve as midwives and nannies for natural-born children. As thousands of years pass under these arrangements, the communities evolve differently: one group develops psychic powers; another cultivates the ability to photosynthesize; another maintains their genetic diversity by splicing their DNA with animals. Eventually, the Mothers become a species of their own, left to grieve when the human race finally goes extinct. Kawakami falters at times with heavy chunks of exposition devoted to outlining the technology and other worldbuilding details. She enchants, however, with depictions of the future from her characters’ perspectives, such as a woman’s recounting of her community’s hybridization with animals (“My husband told me that his first wife had been of mouse origin. The next one was of horse origin, and the third, of kangaroo”). This will stay with readers. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency.

August 1, 2024
Kawakami's prize-winning novel examines the disturbing fate of humanity, intriguingly fused with biblical references and (r)evolutionary theories. Notable translator Yoneda deftly captures Kawakami's meticulous balance of doom-and-gloom and a surprisingly poignant charm. Hers is a future in which children are made in factories and raised by loving mothers, nameless cloning is standard, 18-year-old teens are impregnated by randomly traveling (shared) men, the willfully different among genetically identical children become outcasts. Women outnumber men because (of course) "women are stronger." Humans are relegated to specific sectors, groomed into their communities' "watchers." Those who refuse to stay become "rovers." Outliers with special powers are either committed to labs--"scanners" able to read others' minds, clairvoyants, firestarters--or sacrificed because miraculous healers can only be threats. Certain humans can live hundreds of years, others barely seem to exist. Changes are inevitable; discontent and breakdowns happen. Humans and AI (human-created and human-surpassing) "co-exist in symbiosis" until only two humans seem to survive. Is hope possible? "You humans . . . May you find a way to save yourselves."

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.