Givhan is a Mexican American poet with family ties to the Laguna Pueblo in West-Central New Mexico and in this, her debut novel, she draws heavily on Indigenous storytelling, especially of the Zuni people. This dystopian sci-fi (questionably labeled as Magical Realism) features a pregnant Mexican American anthropologist named Calliope who wakes up following a car accident in a drastically altered world, absent most of its people. She struggles to reconcile her scientific understanding of the world with her unprecedented circumstances, the echoing words of her Acoma Pueblo great-grandmother, and the input of her eventual traveling companions - the strange prophecies of her neighbor girl Eunjoo, and the stories of the Zuni Physics PHD student, Chance, they meet along the way. ⁣
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Opening so ominously and flirting with the horror genre throughout, this book was an exciting and fascinating read. I feel like a lucky person because I’ve unintentionally read two books in a row that draw quantum mechanics into their plots