At the opening of Emma Pattee’s debut novel, Tilt, main character Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA. She knows she shouldn’t have waited this long, but here she is, searching Aisle 8, Bin 31, for a birchwood crib that’s no longer in stock.
And that’s when it hits. The Big One — a massive earthquake that destroys much of the Pacific Northwest. After being trapped beneath shelves and boxes, Annie eventually makes it out of the store, and she sets off on foot to find her husband.
The rest of the novel recounts Annie’s journey through a city in chaos. Surrounded by death and human desperation, Annie talks to her unborn baby, whom she calls Bean. She describes the 24 hours after the initial earthquake, interspersing that journey with the story of how she met and fell in love with her baby’s father.
Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie reflects on her dreams and disappointments, and her lack of preparation for motherhood, both mentally and financially. Meanwhile, she sees grocery stores overrun by looters, cracked streets, collapsed bridges and brick school buildings in crumbles. Her day-long walk shows the best and worst of humanity, and the choices people make when they’re trying to survive.
“We’re all animals now, having shed our human skin hours ago,” Annie says at one point. “The earthquake shook us free, and now we’re in our beastly forms. Back at the beginning of time.”
Tilt is a powerful, fast-paced literary thriller that will have you pondering human nature and your own capacity to carry on.
