The Great Transition: A Novel

by Nick Fuller Googins, Stacy Gonzalez

Genres: Literary Fiction; Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Dystopian

Synopsis

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 when it seems that it can’t get any worse, 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 post-Transition, into a utopia compared to the world known by previous generations. Her parents both suffered and sacrificed, playing pivotal roles in The Great Transition, but now their marriage is deteriorating. And when Emi’s mother goes missing amidst a shocking new political upheaval, Emi’s illusion of comfort and safety is shattered.

Alternating between Emi’s suspenseful search for her mother in the present and The Great Transition when her mother and father battled climate devastation and fell in love, this astonishing debut is a remarkable story of struggle, change, and hope.

Release date: August 15, 2023

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Prologue
 
There was this big throwback craze at school that started on Cooperative Day with a band called U2. Cooperative Day is when all the major cooperatives make presentations in the auditorium to convince you to apply. PepsiCo was there, and Alibaba, and CareCorps (Juniors and Seniors), and Uniqlo and Public Safety and DisneyCo and MemeFeed and tons more. The day isn’t so awful except it’s on a Sunday and mandatory. It got me out of garden hours with my mom, but still, who wants to be at school on a weekend? But then Maddie Choi somehow got onto the network during the very first presentation—the Carbon Capture Cooperative was on stage—and she cast a song “Sunday Bloody Sunday” through the auditorium. It was hilarious. Maddie Choi was a hero—for the prank and for introducing us all to U2. I remember sitting in the auditorium, laughing, and then suddenly quiet with everyone as we were like, How come we’ve never heard anything this good before?
Overnight everyone became U2 obsessed. Lunch was a battle zone: either you ate on this side of the cafeteria because The Joshua Tree was the greatest album ever, or you ate over there because Unforgettable Fire was best. My basketball team warmed up to “Beautiful Day” before games. The only oldies I knew before then were Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift and Valerie June, because my dad said my grandmother used to listen to them. But now I became obsessed along with everyone else. The difference, however, was that to everyone else the oldies were a fad that ended like all fads end. For me though, it just keeps going and going.
I can pick almost any year before the Crisis and name the top hits around the world. I have them all memorized. I love oldies. Music recorded pre-Crisis sounds different. Better. More real. There were still huge problems back then. Obviously. Like the band U2 was from Ireland which had been colonized by England for basically 500 years. There was poverty and pandemics and like a thousand people owned everything on the planet. But nobody had any idea what was coming. Not really. It’s hard to imagine what it must have felt like. I try. I pretend it’s 1980 or 2010 or 1960 and we think everything is great and will continue being great forever. Not even thinking it—just assuming it. Maybe that’s why their music was so good. And why I love it so much. I can slip on my headphones and turn up Madonna or Beyoncé or Prince and pretend that nothing bad is ever going to happen again.

Part One

Chapter One
 
The day before my mom leaves for extraction duty, she’s not herself. She doesn’t wake me early. She doesn’t force us to jog upcity together. Instead, she makes breakfast. I smell it before I see it: egg tacos, sweet potato hash, warm cinnamon milk with honey. She has her screen on the counter streaming something upbeat and bland, and she’s smiling—practically singing good morning—as she pulls out chairs for us to sit.
My dad and I throw each other looks like, Do you know this woman?
My dad’s always the one who makes breakfast. Also lunch and dinner. It’s always been this way. He’s a team nutritionist for the Tundra and he’s really good at his job, even if I don’t always eat what he cooks. When I don’t eat, my mom will say I’m spoiled, or picky or ungrateful, or accuse me of being difficult on purpose. But I’m not. Sometimes I just don’t want to eat. Sometimes I can’t. Even when she tells me I must eat so many bites, like I’m a little kid. She’ll ask if I have any idea how lucky I am, not to know real hunger? She’ll lose her temper. She’ll ignite. She’s most predictable in this way.
Other ways to ignite my mom:
Tell her you want a cat.
Tell her you want your own screen.
Tell her you hate getting up early.
Tell her you wish you lived somewhere less crowded than Nuuk.
Tell her school is stressful.
Tell her that Sundays aren’t meant for sifting compost in the plaza garden.
Tell her you’re scared of choking on your food.
Tell her that you’re scared of anything at all.
But the day before she leaves for extraction duty, the sparks bounce off her. She won’t ignite. When I take one sip of milk and push back my plate, she just smiles and says, Maybe later.
I look at my dad while she scrapes my tacos into the compost.
He shrugs like: I’m not complaining.
My mom’s strange mood doesn’t end at breakfast: usually my dad and I walk the compost to the garden and then he drops me at school, but today she insists on taking me. Except instead of walking to school—after we dump the compost—she stops in the middle of Norsaq Plaza under the shadow of the maglev tracks and touches my arm so I stop too. Morning sun is glowing over the tallest landscrapers like an aura. People stream around us. A group of workers is unloading tools from crates. They have been building a Day Zero stage for our plaza. Next to the stage, the McDonald’s cooperative is putting up this huge food hall. Hanging on the landscraper behind their hall is a banner that curls in the breeze, the fabric rippling upwards from Rebuilding Together! at the bottom to 16 Years and Onward! at the top. I’m one-thousand-percent ready for my mom to make fun of the slogans as she loves to do, and remind me of all the reasons the holiday is a chance for grown adults to play dress up, eat junk, and get drunk, but this isn’t why she stopped us. She doesn’t mention Day Zero at all. She nods to the upcity rambla and suggests we go on a walk.
A walk where? I ask. 
Oh I don’t know. Summit Park?
I can’t skip school, Mom.
Who’s skipping? You’ll only be late. It’s the last day before vacation. I leave tomorrow. Your teachers will understand. We’ll make it a picnic. We’ll grab lunch.
I just had breakfast.
You didn’t eat a thing.
I’m not hungry.
You can get a smoothie.
I said I’m not hungry.
Well fine, we don’t have to eat, Emiliana. We can just walk and talk.
*
It’s not until I’m in North American History, and Mrs. Helmandi is reminding us that our final Great Transition projects are due after break, that I realize why I didn’t go picnicking with my mom.
One, what would we have talked about?
Two, I know what’s going on: she hates the holiday, but feels bad leaving us.
She and my dad have been arguing about it for days. Their arguing isn’t unusual, only their volume. I don’t care. She’s always leaving for extraction duty. Four or five times a year. And our family doesn’t even celebrate Day Zero. My mom doesn’t allow it.
Yes we slowed the warming, she’ll say. Avoided annihilation. But everything we lost? We should be throwing a funeral, not a party. We should be mourning. Organizing. Working twice as hard to ensure it never happens again.
So for the holiday week, that’s ordinarily what we do. Literally. We work. Most years my mom volunteers us at the geothermal farms, which sounds worse than it is. You have to fly to get there, and Greenland from a blimp is insanely pretty. The farms are by the sea with tons of hot springs and saunas. After work, you soak and watch the waves. Last year we saw orcas. But this year’s different. This year we’re splitting up. She’s leaving for extraction duty and my dad’s staying home and I’m going skiing with my basketball team.
Or I’m supposed to go skiing. The problem is this: I keep seeing myself at the ski lodge getting hungry and there are no soups, no smoothies, nothing easy to swallow. And instead of helping me like teammates should, the other girls laugh as my throat closes up while I’m stranded hundreds of miles from home. So I’ve decided I won’t go skiing. I haven’t told my mom. She will one-hundred-percent ignite. I guess I’m saving the spark. Which brings up one last reason I couldn’t skip school to walk and talk with her, even though a part of me really did want to: sometimes it feels good to tell her no.

Chapter Two
 
The day before Kristina leaves for New York it is like we have woken up as a family ten years in the past. You cannot go back. Not overnight. I know this. Still.
The first thing that is different is she does not shake Emi out of bed to jog with her. Their morning argument is my usual alarm. Today Kristina jogs solo, returns, showers off. Then there’s no sound of the front door. She does not leave for the windfields or the energy docks. She pops her head in to tell me not to step one damn foot out of bed until I can smell the coffee. After breakfast she insists on walking Emi to school. She puts a hand on my chest. Kisses me goodbye. Gestures that may not sound terribly exciting. But. Her hand over my heart. Her lips. I am washing the dishes when she returns.
            Hey you, she says.
            Hey yourself.
            She swings the compost bucket under the sink. Leans against the counter. Smiles.
            You look happy, I say.
I have news.
            Do you now?
I hold my breath. Praying she has not decided to run again for Leadership Council.
            You’re going to skip work, she says.
I am.
Yes. You’re going to skip work to stay home with me.
            It’s the day before vacation, I say, turning off the water. Staying home won’t look great.
            I’m doing it.
            Easy for you. I don’t have half your hours.
            She slides behind me. Wraps her arms around my waist.
            Please?
            I examine the sponge in my hands. The soapy suds. Her hands.
            Convince me, I say. What’d you have in mind?
            We’ll catch up. Have fun. Celebrate us. 
            I continue scrubbing the spatula. Kristina rests her head against my back. Her breath is hot through the threads of my shirt. I try to relax as if this is a common marital scene for us. It is not common. I could remind her of this. I could unclasp her hands and say it is not fair to turn a page backwards right before she leaves. Not fair to me. Not fair to Emi.
But then again if you are dreaming a soft warm dream why risk waking up?
            Alright, I say, rinsing and racking the spatula. Let’s celebrate us.

 
Chapter Three
 
After school comes basketball. After basketball comes CareCorps. CareCorps is where I fulfill my hours by feeding kids, playing with kids, soothing kids to sleep for naptime. Today I introduce them to a band called ABBA and a game called zombie tag. After we dance and eat each other’s brains and the last of their parents have picked them up, Maru walks me home. Maru’s my neighbor. She lives below us. She’s a CareCorps lead-attendant, and even though I’m taking a class at school—Early Education and Child Development—everything I’ve really learned about kids is all from her.
            How was basketball today? she asks as we turn off the lights.
            Okay. We scrimmaged. 
            Scrimmage means you play against your friends?
            I wouldn’t technically call them my friends.
            Their loss.  
            Yeah.
            We walk outside and onto the upcity rambla, then Maru asks: Before a game, if you could run onto the court to any song, what song would you choose?   
            Nirvana? I say. Smells Like Teen Spirit.
            Do I know that one? she says.  
            I synch my headphones. She slips them over her ears. Frowns. Smiles. Hands them back and says the fantastic thing about music is that there’s something for absolutely everyone.
            I laugh.
Maru takes care of kids but has none of her own. Just her cat, Alice. You might think living alone with a cat would make someone shy. Not Maru. I interviewed her for my Great Transition project. She did seven tours with Deconstruction Corps, which my dad says was the worst because of all the bodies you came across. But Maru was easier to interview than my parents. She talks to me like I’m an adult. She asks interesting questions. About school. About music. About life. If Maru had asked me to skip school to walk upcity with her this morning, I think I would’ve definitely gone.
We’ve almost reached Norsaq Plaza when she asks about my ski trip: All packed for the North Pole?
            Actually I’m not going. 
            What happened? 
            Don’t feel like it.
            She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something. Then she smiles: Smart girl. Freeze your butt off some other time. Z-Day only comes once a year. You’ll love it.
            We step into Norsaq Plaza. The holiday is still three days away, but the neighborhood is so busy it feels like it could start any minute. Workers are setting up speaker systems, bolting together dance floors. Maru and I step over extension cords, cables, strings of glass bulbs that clink as they snake along the tiles to be hoisted onto lampposts. Two artists are finishing a mural: Wind Corps workers swinging a turbine into place. A famous image but the muralists are painting it with these unexpected colors and lines. 
I heard there are so many people on Day Zero that you can’t even move, I say.
            This is Nuuk, girl—find me one place that isn’t crowded.
And doesn’t everyone just get super drunk?
Wrong. We get super drunk and we dance. It’s the best day of the year, girl. People thought last year was big, but this year’s supposed to be even bigger. I’m glad you’ll be around. About time you get to experience it.
Why is this year supposed to be even bigger?
Got me. Why not? People love a party.
            Then we’re inside our building and outside my door. For a moment I think we’ve accidently entered the wrong floor; the door has the correct number, but from the other side comes loud music and laughter.
            Sounds like you got a party of your own, says Maru, and kisses my cheek goodbye. 
            My mom and dad don’t hear me enter. They’re dancing. My mom’s wearing a dark blue dress I’ve never seen. My dad has a black tie. The air’s warm and heavy like the Tundra training room. Like they’ve been here all day.
            Hi? I say, hanging my keys on the hook. 
            Emi! they cheer like I’ve been gone for years.
Thank god! shouts my mom over the music. Cut in. Please. Your father’s a terrible lead. 
            It’s hard! laughs my dad.
            It’s rumba, she says. You just follow the steps. It’s no different than a recipe.
            It’s so different than a recipe!
            You’d think I’d be happy to see them laughing instead of fighting—and I am happy—but I also feel this pressure behind my eyes, even though nothing remotely sad is happening. I notice my mom’s lipstick, the color of beets. I notice the same beety color on my dad’s neck. I notice wine on the table, the bottle empty, and dishes piled in the sink. I notice that my mom isn’t wearing her hair up like usual, but down, hiding her bad ear and cheek. I can’t remember ever seeing her so pretty.
            Come, Emiliana. Dance with me.
All yours, says my dad with a bow. Good luck.
I stare at him, waiting for a wink—some clue like he sent me over breakfast to let me know we’re still playing along with her. But he sends no clues. Just his dopey smile which makes me feel like he and my mom are the ones in on the secret together, without me.
I’m gross, I say, picking at my clothes. I smell like kids and basketball. I have to shower.
Wait! says my mom. I made you a smoothie! It’s in the fridge.
I’m not hungry.
But it’s blueberry and peanut butter. Your favorite.
You eat it. I have to get started on homework.
            Homework over break? says my dad. What’s wrong with these teachers?
            My Great Transition project, I say, heading to my room. I told you. It’s half my grade.
            They argue for me to stay and dance but—trust me—I’ve heard them argue a million times louder and harder.

Chapter Four
 
Kristina and I are cooling off in bed. My finger traces the valleys and hills of her vertebrae in the dim cityglow that fills our window. The bed belongs to both of us in name but does not always enjoy us as a unit. Many nights one of us takes it solo. Alternating with the futon. I know we are not the only couple that fights and makes up and fights and makes up. But we have been stuck for so long on fight that making up now feels like an unexpected gift that must be returned. I do not want to return it. I want to keep tracing the topography of my wife’s body. Run my hands down her strong legs. Take in her warmth. Fall asleep together. Wake up. Repeat and repeat until we are old and soft and our memories a little crumbly so only the happy bits are left.
            What are you going to do by yourself all week, mister bachelor? she whispers.
            Miss you and Em.
            Liar.
We are trying to keep quiet, for Emi’s sake, but when Kristina accidently knees my butt as she climbs on me we cannot help giggling.
Seriously, she says, sweeping her hair from my face.
            Seriously. And while I’m missing you I might sleep in. Sleep in and cook big disgusting breakfasts.
Breakfast nachos?
You know it.
Mmm. What else?
Organize the clubhouse kitchen. Sharpen the knives. Season the cast iron. Do inventory for the rest of the season. Thrilling stuff.
What about Day Zero? she asks, not missing a beat.
Probably get a beer with Lucas.
Probably?
Most likely.
Just one?
Possibly more than one.
            But upcity, right?
            Upcity, I repeat.
            You won’t go to down to the Esplanade. Even if Lucas wants to.
            I take a calming breath. It is one thing for Kristina to volunteer for extraction duty over the holiday and another for her to tell me how I can celebrate with my friends in her absence. But she has been adamant: making me promise that I will not join the big parades by the seaport. Making me promise—in her words—that I will not be a sheep among sheep. 
            Larch, she says, not whispering. You won’t go down there, right? Let me hear you say it.
            I’ll try my best to resist, I say. But you know Lucas. He can be convincing.
She withdraws her arms and legs. All her warmth slips away with her. She pulls on a shirt. Gathers her hair. Begins pulling it back violently. Turning her head. Giving me her face. Her ear. She would never admit that she uses her scars like armor when she is upset but I know. Her way of telling me we are waking up from the dream of today. She is done acting like we have traveled back ten years as a family. And so am I.
            What’s wrong? I say.
            Nothing’s wrong.  
            You’re the one who told me to call out. You said we’d catch up.
            We did, she says.
            We had lunch. We got drunk and danced. We fucked.
            Well what do you call that? she says, stepping into sweatpants.
Just say whatever it is you want to say, I sigh, exhausted at the idea of another round. But the bell has rung. The fight is happening. I tell her that this feels very much like some political stunt—volunteering over the holiday while everyone else celebrates. I ask her bluntly: Is she running again for office?
She laughs. No. That ship has sailed.
Then don’t leave tomorrow. Go next week.
            I can’t. 
            Says who? The world won’t fall apart without you loading batteries for a week.
            It would if everybody said that.
            Everybody is not saying that! Stay. Emi will be skiing up north. We’ll get the week together. Think about today. How great was today? We could have a week of todays. We won’t do any holiday stuff. We can just work. If that’s how you want to celebrate. At the garden. The docks. Wherever. But we should be together.
I’m sorry, Larch. I can’t.
What if I come with you? I say, sitting up, my back against the cool wall that separates our room from Emi’s. We could go to New York together.
She shakes her head: I need to go alone. I told you.
I could just show up at Gowanus and work with you. I don’t need your permission.
She laughs. You’re going to volunteer for extraction duty? Over the holiday?
Sure. Why not?
She raises an eyebrow, then shakes her head. No, she says, pulling on a sweatshirt. The answer is no.  
Sixteen fucking years, I say.
Keep your voice down. Emi’s sleeping.
Sixteen fucking years, I whisper. Everything isn’t perfect. I know that. But there’s still a lot worth celebrating.
Not for everyone, she says.
For us, I say. So celebrate it. With me.
I can’t.
You could.
I won’t.
I blurt the obvious and not for the first time: Are you seeing someone else?
She looks at me through the dim halflight for a long moment, then puts a knee on the bed. Another knee. Crawls over in that way that always gets me. Takes my face in her hands.
            Larch. Listen to me. Seeing someone else is the last thing on my mind.
            Then what is? What’s on your mind?
            Even in the dim I catch a shine to her eyes. Like she wants to cry. Like she wants me to tell her she is allowed to cry. Allowed to lower her armor.
Instead it is me who opens up. As always.
            She catches my tears with the back of her hand. She wipes her hand on my chest. You’re right about today, she whispers. Today was so wonderful. My love. Let’s not ruin it.

Chapter Five
 
With my headphones on, and Nirvana as loud as I can make them, I can’t hear my mom or dad through the wall. But I can still imagine I can hear them, which is somehow worse. Each time I take off my headphones to check, they’re trying to be quiet, and failing. The moaning is the worst. So I keep my music loud. Lie in the dark. Feel my heartbeat in my fingernails and ride the wave of my hunger.
I can’t say if hunger is the same for everyone, but for me it starts small—a little wave in my belly, which swells without warning into something large and panicky that begs me to fill it up. With focus, I can ride the crest of the wave and glide down the other side. Then the wave will close out neatly into a flat, still surface that sparks with a kind of giddy light-headedness that melts everything away. Even when the world is spinning so fast—everything that’s wrong, or could go wrong—if I ride the wave just right, I can control the spinning. Like magic. The spinning stops, and I disappear into something clean and calm and completely mine.
That’s one outcome of riding the wave. The other outcome is I fall. Falling off the wave is like the ocean opens up and wants me and everything else. Then the world comes rushing back—school, grades, kids at school, my parents’ fighting, my mom yelling at me about the Crisis and how it could happen again—spinning faster than before.
Falling happens most easily after basketball practice. Or in the school cafeteria. Also late night such as now when there’s a blueberry peanut butter smoothie in the fridge. Times like these demand highest discipline. Your hands shake. Your heart hammers. But the reward’s worth it. Because it’s important to know hunger. My mom grew up in a border camp. Once she went four days without food. She was younger than me. She says it made her stronger. She isn’t right about everything, but she’s right about this: not only to know hunger, but to feel it in your core. How else can you control it?
I switch from Nirvana and lower the volume to check on my parents. Finally it’s silent through the wall. Quiet at last. But no.
            Emiliana?
My door is a pale rhombus of light. I close my eyes. Slow my breath. Twitch a little. Pretending to sleep. I want her to leave me alone. At the same time, I don’t want her to leave me alone. I don’t want to want both of these things at once, but with my mom, it’s often the case.
She sits on the edge of my bed. If she&rs