Existentialism and Hope in the Time of Plague

Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go In the Dark: a Novel

Deep beneath the melting Siberian permafrost, an archeologist makes a chilling discovery: dozens of perfectly preserved Neanderthal bodies, laid out with precision. As global warming thaws what the millennia have guarded, something wakes up. Despite the scientists’ best efforts, a long-dormant microorganism escapes the site. Before long, the “Arctic plague” threatens the very foundations of human civilization.

It’s slightly misleading to call Sequoia Nagamatsu’s first novel “science fiction,” though it uses time-honored genre staples to launch its story. I wouldn’t even necessarily call it “a novel,” as it’s basically a short-story sequence, the Winesburg, Ohio of mass-market fiction. Nagamatsu has crafted an experimental form, a postmodern rejection of literal through-line storytelling in favor of immersing yourself in a whirlwind of speculative experience.

The Arctic plague first strikes children. Global civilization (but, in this book, mostly America) struggles to maintain its cultural suppositions about childhood innocence, even as childhood becomes the number-one indicator of mortality. Scientists perform increasingly daredevil experiments to keep children alive, to preserve the illusion that humanity has a future. Some of these experiments test the limits of what defines “humanity.”

It’s exceedingly difficult to synopsize Nagamatsu’s story because, as I’ve already said, it lacks a through-line. Main characters in one chapter emerge as principal protagonists several chapters later; others disappear without explanation. Rather like life, that. The story jumps years, sometimes generations, as Nagamatsu moves onto whatever most interests him. Most stories are set in America, mostly California, though three take place in Japan.

Rather than a straightforward narrative, Nagamatsu focuses on creating a mood. As you’d expect from a novel about a plague, themes of mortality and loss abound. Though one chapter focuses on disembodied souls in limbo, that’s an outlier; nearly every chapter deals primarily with survivors, those forced to watch helplessly as their loved ones slip away. These days, many readers may find these themes disconcertingly familiar.

But despite these themes, Nagamatsu’s storytelling is remarkably optimistic. His protagonists find meaning in survival, in facing a world characterized by bereavement. His characters face the existentialist reality that all human endeavor ends in mortality, sooner or later; then they shoulder that burden and continue. Death, to Nagamatsu’s characters, isn’t the end, it’s their reason to persevere, though they sometimes require several chapters to accept this.

Sequoia Nagamatsu

Even with his cast of thousands and his international scope, Nagamatsu’s storytelling has a personal edge. Several characters are, like Nagamatsu himself, Japanese-American; more than a few are aspiring artists whose parents consider them a disappointment. (Hmmm…) The recurrence of this generational, cross-cultural conflict underlines several stories. During the plague, humanity needs more doctors and scientists; but it also needs artists to make chaotic times meaningful.

Nagamatsu’s story overlaps heavily with current events, but don’t read too much into that. According to the copyright page, this book’s chapters have dribbled out in literary journals and anthologies since 2011, long before COVID existed. Parts of Nagamatsu’s story eerily predict the fear and uncertainty we witness daily, though he probably rewrote portions to remain current. This book is about us, without necessarily being “ripped from the headlines.”

Not everyone will like Nagamatsu’s technique. He frequently uses the MFA workshop trend in ironic distancing, holding his characters at arms’ length. Though all but one of these chapters are told by first-person narrators, Nagamatsu’s storytellers maintain a dry, dispassionate tenor. Faced with dying children and desperate parents, with global warming in the background, and humanity’s brightest fleeing the Earth, his protagonists remain coolly detached, weary of their own emotions.

This approach takes some getting used to. Anybody hoping to read a conventional science fiction potboiler will find this book disappointing. It requires attentive reading, and a willingness to suspend our love of genre conventions. His writing reflects familiarity with Kierkegaard and Sartre, but also Star Trek and Japanese anime. (Seriously, there’s a Starship Yamato.) He uses science fiction parts without really writing a science fiction novel.

However, for readers willing to let Nagamatsu guide their attention, he tells a story both dark and humane. He writes in a near-future setting that’s all to plausible, about themes that are part of our everyday loves; but he doesn’t surrender to cynicism or let despair run his story. He writes about us, with all the disappointment and optimism that entails. He reminds us that, no matter how bleak our present seems, there’s always still a future.

Through it all, through the grief and art and isolation and love, he reminds us that we become human when we believe.