The Lightest Object in the Universe: A Novel

by Kimi Eisele

Overview

A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection * An Indie Next Pick * An Indies Introduce Selection *  One of Reader’s Digest’s Best Summer Books of 2019  * One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of 2019 * One of Real Simple’s Best Books of 2019 
 
“[This] might be the most optimistic post-apocalyptic story ever written. It’s Sleepless in Seattle meets Station Eleven.” —The A.V. Club
 
 Carson is on the East Coast when the electrical grid goes down. Desperate to find Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart, he sets off along a cross-country railroad line, where he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those seeking salvation. Meanwhile, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct a cooperative community, working to turn the end of the world into the possibility of a bright beginning.
 
Without modern means of communication, will Beatrix and Carson be able to find their way to each other? The answer may lie with one fifteen-year-old girl, whose actions could ultimately decide the fate of the lovers.
 
The Lightest Object in the Universe is a moving story about adaptation and the power of community, imagining a world where our best traits, born of necessity, can begin to emerge.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643750484
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Kimi Eisele is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Orion Magazine, High Country News, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arizona, where in 1998 she founded You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She has received grants from the Arts Foundation of Southern Arizona, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance. This is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

In The Lightest Object in the Universe, author Kimi Eisele explores how humanity would have to evolve, relying on hope and love to ultimately sustain humankind.”
—The Associated Press

“A worthy addition to the realm of speculative fiction . . . More than just standard techno-challenged-humanity-rendered-atavistic fare, this is a love story. More accurately, the quest for love and its potential in a world demanding to be rebuilt.”
—The Millions

“Clear-eyed and tender . . . an enlightening, though never precious perspective on what it means to rebuild something, rather than just wallow in destruction. It's a story of hope, resilience, and being human.”
—Nylon

“It’s Sleepless In Seattle meets Station Eleven . . . the leisurely chapters are full of beauty, the characters are layered and nuanced, and the plot still moves at a faster clip than Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, another Odyssean novel about lovers separated by harsh geography. To be fair, there are plenty of horrors in Eisele’s version of the apocalypse . . . But unlike The Road, The Lightest Object is mostly interested in the survivors who are kind to one another. If that sounds naïve, maybe Cormac McCarthy made us all too cynical.”
—The A.V. Club

“A near-future apocalypse forms the backdrop for an intense, moving romance in Eisele’s smart debut . . . Fans of Station Eleven will particularly enjoy this hopeful vision of a postapocalyptic world where there is danger, but also the possibility for ideas to spread, community to blossom, and people to not just survive, but thrive.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This is Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain crossed with Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. Filled with luminous writing and messages of love and hope, this story will motivate everyone to sharpen their ham radio skills.”
—Library Journal

“A compellingly realistic depiction of the world after the collapse of civilization, although at its heart, it is a love story told in the vein of Cold Mountain . . . The Lightest Object in the Universe is an intriguing and engrossing debut novel that will leave readers thinking about their own ability to survive, their own capacity for love, and their willingness to face catastrophe with hope.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Kimi Eisele’s first novel is a love story set in a landscape where everything (government, history, infrastructure) has collapsed—except our need for one another and the struggle to persevere. In such a world, love may be on the run, but it can still  be a transforming force. What’s required is a kind of faith: in ourselves, in one another, in a future that is no more or less uncertain than it has always been. The experience of humanity, in other words, which Eisele brings to every page of this deeply moving narrative.”
—David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles

From the Publisher

04/29/2019

A near-future apocalypse forms the backdrop for an intense, moving romance in Eisele’s smart debut. After the U.S. suffers runaway inflation, natural disasters, a flu epidemic, massive protests, and, finally, a nationwide cyberattack on the power grid, society breaks down. Somewhere on the East Coast, high school principal Carson Waller begins a cross-country trek in hopes of finding Beatrix, a woman he’d fallen in love with over email. Biking, walking, and hitchhiking, he slowly makes his way with the help of strangers who often talk about Jonathan Blue and the Center he leads, where food and amenities are provided for all who come. In alternating chapters, the story explores how Beatrix sows the seeds of a community through trade of goods and services with her West Coast neighbors. With no modern means of communication, Beatrix turns to the airwaves to share information, starting a radio show that becomes the center of a new group—and a beacon for Carson—that offers an alternative to the promises of Blue. Fans of Station Eleven will particularly enjoy this hopeful vision of a postapocalyptic world where there is danger, but also the possibility for ideas to spread, community to blossom, and people to not just survive, but thrive. (July)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2019

DEBUT Eisele's first novel is apocalypse lite: there are no zombies, invasions, or wars. Instead, there's the flu, a flood, and an inevitable financial fall, a combination that makes this end-of-the-world journey seem ordinary in the best way. These catastrophes hinder access to food, transportation, and medicine, and create room for predatory spiritual leaders and gangs of unruly teenagers (called the T-Rizers) to wreak havoc on the survivors. Beatrix, on the East Coast, and Carson, on the West, are desperate to find each other to navigate this new era together. And for every person who threatens their progress toward each other, there are others who help. The survivors they meet along the way are rediscovering homesteading and redefining community as they reconstruct a postal system, pool their collective preapocalypse skills, and learn how to trust one another. VERDICT This is Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain crossed with Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Filled with luminous writing and messages of love and hope, this story will motivate everyone to sharpen their ham radio skills.—Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

Library Journal

In this sci-fi audiobook, two people, both portrayed by narrator Gabra Zackman, are trying to find their way back to each other. In the future, the global economy has collapsed, and the electrical grid has failed. Despite the chaos, Carson is travelling across the country to Beatrix, who is working to build a new way of life in her neighborhood. This is a hopeful post-apocalyptic story, and Zackman's narration reflects that. Both characters sound worn down, but there’s grit and resolution in their voices that make the listener believe in their efforts. The story emphasizes radio as a source of communication, both through an evangelical preacher and the pirate station that Beatrix launches. These elements especially lend themselves to the audio format. C.J.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

In this sci-fi audiobook, two people, both portrayed by narrator Gabra Zackman, are trying to find their way back to each other. In the future, the global economy has collapsed, and the electrical grid has failed. Despite the chaos, Carson is travelling across the country to Beatrix, who is working to build a new way of life in her neighborhood. This is a hopeful post-apocalyptic story, and Zackman's narration reflects that. Both characters sound worn down, but there’s grit and resolution in their voices that make the listener believe in their efforts. The story emphasizes radio as a source of communication, both through an evangelical preacher and the pirate station that Beatrix launches. These elements especially lend themselves to the audio format. C.J.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

2019-04-28
A post-apocalypse novel takes an unusually optimistic tack, braiding a love story with the efforts of survivors to create new ways to live.

Eisele's debut is set in a near future where a global economic meltdown has led to the collapse of governments and power grids, complicated by a pandemic of deadly flu and the unchecked effects of climate change. The main characters dealing with those dire circumstances are Beatrix Banks and Carson Waller, a pair of earnest 30-somethings. Beatrix was an activist for fair labor and trade practices, Carson a high school principal. They met when she spoke to one of his classes about global warming; they spent less than two days together, but they've kept the spark glowing via the internet—until the web winked out. With no more schools or international trade, they're at loose ends. Carson leaves his home in what sounds like New York City to walk cross-country to find her, following railroad tracks for 3,000 miles. Beatrix, meanwhile, stays put in her home on the West Coast, banding together with neighbors to share food, dig pit toilets, and schlep buckets of water delivered by horse-drawn carts. The novel alternates between their points of view, except for sections focused on Beatrix's neighbor Rosie, a teenager conveniently gifted with second sight. As the lovers wonder if they'll ever find each other, they fret separately over an evangelist named Jonathan Blue, who seems to have taken over the somewhat functional radio airwaves and is exhorting survivors to join his movement. Eisele creates some intriguing characters, but the novel makes dealing with the apocalypse seem a little too easy. Bad times can bring out the best in some people. But given the current state of our deeply divided, heavily armed nation, it takes a stretch to imagine that, in the event of total international disaster, so much of the population would cheerfully turn to manual labor and generosity.

It's pretty to think that a global economic, political, and technological collapse could be solved by bike co-ops, backyard chickens, and a radio show about a homegrown superhero, plus a little true love, but this novel just doesn't make it plausible.

Kirkus Reviews