Tilt: A Novel

by Emma Pattee

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

What would you do if the world started crumbling around you? Emma Pattee explores humanity, desperation, love and survival in this breathtaking read.

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A USA TODAY Bestseller

Set over the course of a single day, an electrifying debut novel from “a powerful new literary voice” (Vogue) following one woman’s journey across a transformed city, carrying the weight of her past and a fervent hope for the future.

Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen.

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.

A propulsive debut, Tilt is a primal scream of a novel about the disappointments and desires we all carry, and what each of us will do for the people we love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668055472
Publisher:	S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication date:	03/25/2025
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	4,758
Product dimensions:	1.00(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and fiction writer. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She lives in Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/06/2025

In Pattee’s nail-biting debut, a pregnant woman navigates the aftermath of a major earthquake in Portland, Ore. The story opens with Annie, 35, shopping for a crib at IKEA on her first day of maternity leave. She grows angry with salesperson Taylor for overlooking her, until a massive tremor rattles the building and she’s trapped by shifting boxes and cabinets. After Taylor helps her escape, Annie flees without her wallet or keys, joining a crowd walking to the heart of the city. She needs to find her husband, Dom, a jovial, struggling actor who works at a café four miles away. Despite her pregnancy, few are willing to give her a ride on the city’s cracked streets, and she is wary of those who do stop. Still, Annie is tenacious and leans into her dark sense of humor, mentally drafting an Instagram post (“Well, didn’t think my morning would go like this”) and wondering if all the damaged housing might mean that she and Dom will be able to afford their own place. Pattee’s depiction of a post-earthquake Portland feels bracingly realistic, and her depictions of marriage and impending motherhood are achingly raw. Shocking and full of heart, this leaves a mark. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The storytelling in Tilt is brisk [and] as funny as a novel about humanity at its worst can be... Pattee’s ambivalence about human goodness is a powerful thing; it calls into question the assumptions we make about ourselves.” —Washington Post

“Recounting Annie’s precarious journey across the city and into her past, Pattee reveals that the quake has upended more than the earth. A captivating novel.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Tilt promises wit and style, and reminders of humanity in the face of disaster. A force to be reckoned with.” —Literary Hub, LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

"Tilt heralds the arrival of a powerful new literary voice." —Vogue, Best Books of 2025

“Every gorgeous page pulses with humor, heartbreak, and the horror of human behavior when the unthinkable happens. Emma Pattee has written a smashing debut that had me turning the pages well into the night.” —Jessica Knoll, New York Times Bestselling author of Bright Young Women

“[A] fascinating and emotional debut... compelling... Instantly readable and filled with dry humor, this book follows in the footsteps of other disaster novels while bringing a fresh take to the genre.” —Booklist (starred)

“[A] nail-biting debut... Pattee’s depiction of a post-earthquake Portland feels bracingly realistic, and her depictions of marriage and impending motherhood are achingly raw. Shocking and full of heart, this leaves a mark.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred)

"Tilt is a remarkable debut—a gorgeous, haunting blend of a suspenseful survival thriller and a fierce portrait of maternal love. I was so mesmerized that I blew off all my responsibilities, threw all other reading aside, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting, loving every moment." —Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek

"Tilt is a swift, exhilarating punch to the gut, the most embodied twenty-four hours of narrative I can remember reading. Through the eyes of the prickly, funny, and very pregnant narrator, we viscerally experience the surreal, unbearable, comic, and beautiful ways that humans behave in a crisis. The Road meets Nightbitch meets What to Expect When You're Expecting. I loved this novel." —Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State and Mobility

"An epic natural disaster adventure story starring a pregnant woman on a mission. A nuanced, stark, tender portrait of a marriage. A tale of destruction and loss punctuated by surprising moments of empathy. Emma Pattee’s debut novel Tilt manages to be all of the above, and more. Equal parts heart-wrenching and life-affirming, this riveting book made me laugh, cry, and think. I couldn’t put it down." —Helen Phillips, author of Hum and The Need

From the Publisher

★ 2025-03-08
On the cusp of motherhood, a woman faces peril.

Annie is 37 weeks pregnant, shopping for a crib at IKEA, when suddenly she feels a terrible jolt, “a wave underneath me,” she thinks, “lifting me up.” An earthquake has hit Portland. In her assured debut novel, Pattee follows Annie through a horrific day: With wreckage all around her, she is intent on making her way to find her husband. She has miles to walk, it’s hot, she’s hungry and thirsty and afraid. She’s alone, and yet not alone, because she’s carrying a child, her precious Bean. “How did we get here, Bean?,” she asks. “You and me, IKEA, Monday morning, AISLE 8, BIN 31, hand on metal rack, eyes wide in fear, body tensed like a firecracker about to explode?” As she trudges across devastating landscapes—collapsed houses, bridges, and schools; supermarkets and convenience stores overrun by looters; bodies of the wounded and dead—Annie answers that question by beginning 17 years earlier, when she fell in love with Bean’s father, Dom, and they set out together to fulfill their dreams of becoming stars: she, a playwright; he, an actor. But Annie gave up writing, and Dom, while tirelessly auditioning, works at a cafe. Annie worries, as she walks, about their lack of money “to have a baby, much less feed a baby, much less house a baby, much less pay somebody to watch said baby.” She worries that they’ll never be able to afford a home of their own, with real estate prices ballooning. She worries about her ability for mothering, for being a “lifelong cheerleader” for her husband, and about realizing their dashed dreams. Recounting Annie’s precarious journey across the city and into her past, Pattee reveals that the quake has upended more than the earth.

A captivating novel.

Kirkus Reviews