I started this book before leaving for NZ and finished it on the plane, but that was 10 wilderness days ago, and my mind has replaced book details with flora, fauna, mountains, and water.

I remember that I really liked the book, and even though several people told me I’d prefer part two over part one, I liked them equally, though part one took a bit more concentration. 

It is set in two time periods: it opens in the future–2119–in which the world is a flooded mess after the “inundation,” and a uni professor, Tom, is researching a 21st c poet, specifically a single poem titled “A Corona for Vivian” that the poet wrote and delivered at a 2014 dinner party at his home. The story then shifts to details of the dinner party in 2014, all of which Tom surmises based on extensive research of the poet’s and his wife’s papers, journals, news articles, etc. because that’s what literary scholars do: interpret meaning and fill in gaps based on what they know and have studied. Tom’s partner, Rose, often reminds him that he’s making a lot of guesses without actual facts. The poem in question has never turned up in these hundred years, and so it seems it was read aloud, given to Vivian, and never seen again. 

This part of the story was quite entertaining in its depiction of the dinner party guests: some were bored with the poem, some marriages were on the rocks, some were faking interest in the activities of the evening. I found all the dinner guests interesting characters, and I enjoyed their antics and interactions.

Part two of the book has a different narrator, and in a nutshell, this part clarifies what actually happened that night at the party as well as what led up to it and what followed. It reminded me of Herman Diaz’s book Trust, where different narrators of the same events tell very different stories.  

This novel is sort of sci fi (in its futuristic climate disaster), sort of mystery (what actually transpired among these 10 dinner party guests?), sort of satire (of poets, poetry, literary theory, academia) This is well written and thought provoking and one of my top five or ten reads this year. Highly recommend.