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896 pages, Hardcover
First published January 10, 2023
this horror has no conclusion.an epic work of great ambition, stephen markley’s the deluge (the follow-up to his 2018 debut novel, ohio) is a dark, dystopian tale of american catastrophe and collapse. spanning a quarter century (2013-2039) – and some 950 pages – the deluge is speculative fiction (or, god help us, precognitive foreboding) at its absolute bleakest. with a rich cast of complex characters, markley’s latest envisions our coming future as one beset by disaster and cataclysm.
the years of the covid-19 pandemic, economic decline, increasing inequality, news of the plutocratic class gorging itself on the commonweal, widespread addiction, extreme weather events, and psychological despair have, i fear, primed the body politic to accept radical interventions.whether you prefer your perils environmental (fires, floods, storms, rising sea levels, crop failure), political (state violence, total surveillance, extrajudicial killings, religious extremism, domestic terrorism, fascist takeovers, mercenary policing, demagoguery), financial (unprecedented unemployment, extraordinary wealth disparity, ravaged housing market, widespread poverty, failing economies), or social (addiction, sexual violence, mass shootings, abuse, white supremacy, destructively pervasive virtual reality), the deluge offers a merciless torrent of them all. fueled by the cascading consequences of unmitigated climate change, nearly every facet of american government and civic life alike breaks down, erodes, and ultimately succumbs to the inundation of chaos. make no mistake, the coming 25 years as foretold in this novel are marked indelibly by violence and brutality.
“there is nothing more dangerous than the excitement of those suffering from a lack of agency and great bitterness of soul.”rather arduous it is to see the current american trajectory as anything other than a precarious, unstable course, but if (somehow!) the real world isn’t already enough of a dismal, daily reminder of dark days ahead, the deluge will all but beat you into senseless submission. while markley’s narrative is sometimes demoralizing, it is unquestionably impressive in scope. for days after reading, one might wonder (as i did almost endlessly) why an author would write a book like this. is it a chronicle of so many deaths foretold? a harbinger? a portent? an elegy? anthropological pre-mortem? whatever it may be, the deluge is unyielding; it marvels and it mortifies. it’s ferocious and it’s frightening, imperfect yet aspiring, broken but brave. few books in a lifetime will make you feel as this one must and while full of every kind of blooming horror, markley’s magnum opus is as engulfing as it is earnest.
when i write of my mauve dread, the slice of the color spectrum that has followed me my entire life, i perhaps speak of what i long intuited before i even had the mathematics to explain it: a new dark age brims on the horizon. religious fanaticism, ethnic factionalism, and political extremism will engulf the planet, and the pillage of the natural world will indeed accelerate as the elite make one last futile attempt to gather as much capital as possible in an effort to wall themselves off from the inevitable. perhaps this is why i remain funereal about the coming election. civilization’s abrupt retreat will be marked the world over by every flavor of warring chief in crisp, elegantly tailored suits murdering to obtain power in the hope that they might rule this barbaric and alien age.
No matter what ideologies arise, what myths we embrace, what technologies we invent, what dreams we offer, this crisis is effectively our eternity.