In 2020, when many of us began working from home, I started listening to a podcast series called The Happiness Lab. The creators had produced a string of episodes dedicated to coping with the pandemic, and one episode in particular stuck with me. The theme was that, at some point, we would come out on the other side of our current global challenge, and one way to get through it was to think about what kind of story we want to be able to tell when we emerge. We were all struggling, emotionally and/or physically. If we think about a safer, happier time in the future, what can we do now that will give us satisfaction when we get there?
I thought about this podcast while I was reading How High We Go in the Dark, which recounts the story of a much darker world and more deadly pandemic than the one we experienced. It tells the stories of people who are devastated by loss and yet continue to do their best to provide what little bright spots they can offer in spite of their own grief.
I’m oversimplifying a complex novel. I should note that, while it’s labeled a novel, I think of it more like a series of short stories connected by a shared experience (a pandemic and a world that’s warming at a dangerous rate) and shared characters. The book jacket draws comparisons to Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, though the format reminded me more of The Martian Chronicles, with the various vignettes being assembled into a cohesive tale. The first story “30,000 Years Beneath a Eulogy” is about an archaeologist who travels to a dig site in the Arctic Circle where his deceased daughter Clara had been working. Clara’s purpose had been to fight global warming; in the process, she uncovered the remains of a Neanderthal girl, the discovery of which soon sets off the global pandemic that serves as the backdrop for the stories.
The individual tales are devastating, and I suspect personal triggers will vary depending upon readers’ sensibilities. For me, the two stories that hit me hardest were “City of Laughter,” about an employee at a state-run amusement park that aims to give critically ill children one last day of joy, and “Pig Son,” about a lab where pigs are raised for donor organs that’s thrown into chaos when one of the pigs develops speech and demonstrates complex thought. These stories about the loss and vulnerability of children are tied together through a common character, making them feel even more brutal. (That the pig in question is named Snortorious P.I.G. is probably the only instance of comic relief in this novel, but even that is short lived).
The writing is beautiful. In “City of Laughter,” the narrator describes the child he’s watching over: “I tried to imagine him at his worst, when his paper-thin skin turned impossible colors, as if every cell in his body had been set aflame. I reminded myself that the virus eating at his brain had wrapped around his synapses, stealing a little part of him with each minute–and then I opened my eyes and saw him more alive than he had ever been.” Regardless of how this novel turned out, I was prepared to give it 5 stars based on “City of Laughter” and “Pig Son” alone.
Interconnectivity is a major theme. As Clara’s father notes, “It’s strange how the discovery of an ancient girl in Siberia and viruses we’ve never encountered before can both redefine what we know about being human and at the same time threaten our humanity.” The book takes a turn toward the end that I wasn’t expecting, though there are hints along the way that I missed. In spite of how dark some of the stories feel, How High We Go in the Dark is fused with hope for the world (the final story being called “The Scope of Possibility”). I don’t want to mislead–individual characters face unbearable losses. But as a civilization, there just might be hope for us yet.
