Susanna Kwan’s debut novel is set in her hometown of San Francisco, but it is not the beautiful city on the bay that it is today. Instead, AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY leans in to climate catastrophe, the kind that the denizens of the Bay City know all too well --- the whispers of water coming to overtake their part of the paradise that is Northern California.

And now, in a flooded San Francisco, an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for are two of the last people living there. Neither of them wishes to leave the home she loves so much, regardless of the inherent dangers in this new state of nature. The book picks up in the place where our contemporary fears meet the details of the dreaded future and wonders out loud just what is in store for humanity when the worst happens, but there are still those who hang on to life.

"AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY reminds readers to live in the now in order to save the later. It’s a brave novel with a lovely message."

Bo is well aware of how her city has been drowned by decades of rain. Her mother was lost in a flood, leaving her all alone. She has tried to make it as an artist, but her creativity all goes to searching for her mother, whom she hopes is still alive somewhere. Instead of making art, she is making plans with her cousin to leave this water-soaked landscape. On the day she’s going to depart, a note is pushed under her door. Mia, an elderly woman in her building, will pay her to be a caregiver. Bo happily gives up on the trip and settles back into her quiet existence.

Hearing about Mia’s life has inspired Bo to revisit her artistic talents. As Mia tells her stories, she realizes that they will be lost to history as the waters overtake more and more of the city. When Mia gets sick, Bo takes a turn as well, creating a project that will help to memorialize this disappearing world. Both learn to be present, and they enjoy and commemorate the world they are witnessing as it gives itself over to something unknown.

AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY is a positive view of surviving the climate changes we are all experiencing. As Bo says, “So then what? There would be no remembrance for which her family would gather. But Mia deserved a brass band trailed by a town car, her portrait ringed in white carnations and roped to the hood, and a procession of mourners behind. She deserved a tour through the city, past all the places she’d lived, the current occupants oblivious to the history of their own homes but drawn out to the spectacle in the street.”

The closer Mia gets to passing, the more Bo realizes that the people are what make the city. The hustling and bustling, the stories, the inventions, the arts and the excitement are just part of what happens when one lives a life thinking they have all the time in the world. But no one place and no one person does, and Bo’s project to reclaim the present and live it to the fullest is one that every reader will find to be poignant and imaginative.

Bo and Mia are broken-spirited but not completely down and out. The ways in which they continue to affect and inspire each other, while the world outside does nothing but disappoint, is a beautiful paean to the resilience of people, and women in particular. Both characters have their issues, but somehow they are able to grow enough to see each other in the kind of light that changes lives. AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY reminds readers to live in the now in order to save the later. It’s a brave novel with a lovely message.