Climate change novels are either firmly in the science fiction genre or tackle the apocalyptic issue from a more classically literary standpoint. Most are dystopian, some offer rays of hope. Until now, however, even the best of them has not managed to capture my own deep existential anxiety and the need to find hope when hope is not there. Now, with her superb fourth novel In This Ravishing World, San Francisco’s Nina Schuyler manages to strike hard at the core moral and human issues while offering wonderful, humane characters struggling with their lives. The central character, who figures in a few stories, is a renowned scientist who fought all her life to bring corporations into climate-friendly states, only to end up, late in life, disillusioned to the point of despair. Add in her scientist daughter, striving to conceive; her son the ballet dancer and his loves; a young boy roaming the street at night searching for free stuff; a wrecked woman volunteering at a dog pound … put them all together, and In This Ravishing World nails the modern climate-nihilistic world.
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