Jenny Shank | (TNS) Star Tribune
In the future, a refugee girl named Silvia and her mother move to the Morningside during a time of coastal flooding and wildfires.
In a run-down high-rise in the remaining part of a sunken city, Island City, they meet their only surviving relative, Ena, who hints that a woman in the penthouse has the power to create shapeshifters. Silvia suspects the woman is a “Vila,” a kind of enchantress, but wants to make sure before telling her skeptical mother. This marks the beginning of Téa Obreht’s captivating third novel “The Morningside.”
Silvia is very tall for an 11-year-old, and her mother is small, like a fairy. Her mother has forbidden her from speaking their native language and she never shares any information willingly.
The people of Island City rely on online forums and a pirate radio station called the Drowned City Dispatch for news due to “Posterity Measures” restrictions. Ena has been the superintendent of The Morningside for years, and since Silvia can't enroll in school, she starts helping Ena. Most of the building is empty, except for a few wealthy old “janglers,” as Ena calls them, who wear all their jewelry at once.
Silvia is very curious about her mother's hidden past and the Vila’s abilities, but she's also cautious, hiding talismans around the building for protection. One day, she meets a fearless girl named Mila who encourages her in her quest for discovery.
Attempt to read 10 pages of this book and resist its fairy-tale charm. This story immerses the reader in its dreamlike world as much as the Morningside sinks into the island it's on. With a brave young protagonist exploring a once-luxurious building, this novel combines the charm of “Eloise” and “Harriet the Spy,” the ancient allure of folklore, and prescient magic akin to that in Mohsin Hamid’s wonderful “Exit West.” In this uncertain world, adults hide secrets that Silvia is determined to uncover.
Obreht is an innate storyteller with a direct connection to the collective unconscious. She blends humor and tragedy, warmth and grit, mystery and magic, shaping her plot from human curiosity and connection. Her writing feels like she belongs to a lineage of storytellers who entertained around campfires, with such confidence that readers know all the unusual elements and striking characters she brings in will come together into a haunting and meaningful tale.
With reality becoming stranger every day, we need a novelist like Obreht who can envision our species’ fate in a way that feels real. In her envisioned world, there is loss, but beauty endures. As cranes nest in rooftop water towers, hope for human connection survives among the scattered people who have managed to survive.
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The Morningside
By: Téa Obreht.
Publisher: Random House, 287 pages, $29.
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