Book Club - Ann Dombroski’s After the Great Storm

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11d ago 3:55

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Ann Dombroski’s prize-winning short fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Her debut novel is After the Great Storm

In the near future, Sydney is dominated by seemingly monolithic corporate structures. From prisons to transport and even medicine, the city skyline is overcome by these enormous structures that obscure the sky and channel the increasingly destructive storms that swamp the city..

Alice’s husband is locked in one of these high-rise prisons. Jailed for a crime he claims to be innocent of and vehemently protesting the cost cutting of the same corporations that have locked him away.

Alice wants a baby but first she has to get her husband out of jail. There’s the legal costs and she’s not even sure she can afford to keep their house let alone pay for the experimental fertility treatments. With nowhere to turn Alice is increasingly desperate for respite.

When another catastrophic storm hits on Alice’s way home from work she must hurry to escape the environmental destruction. In the morning as the neighbourhood takes stock of the latest damage, a strange and shadowy figure appears on Alice’s doorstep…

Ann Dombriski’s future imperfect tale of a barely recognisable Sydney is a fascinating look at possible consequences of our rapid modernisation. While Alice lives in a townhouse in a so-called heritage neighbourhood, we are privy to the changes that have divided Sydney up into sectors and splintered the social fabric along ghettoized economic lines.

Alice’s life is teetering on the verge of collapse and we are forced to watch on as blow after blow makes it seem increasingly unlikely that Alice will be the heroine who rides off into the sunset.

The novel explores the seeming inevitable moral ambiguity of a world that has continued to develop and sell off its assets for increasing growth. All of the characters, Alice included must look to how they can best codify themselves or the things in their lives, to leverage the necessities and just survive.

We are shown just how far technology can take us, even as we are challenged with a vision of capricious development for its own sake. Alice works in the field of medical research and advancements and we are challenged with the for-profit access to health and its impacts on care. Lurking behind all of this though is the secret hidden in Alice’s home. A secret that may represent the solution to her problems, even as it damns her.

I feel deep into the world building of After the Great Storm and enjoyed traveling through this convincing, if chilling version of Sydney. I couldn’t see where there’d be room for 2ser in this corporate wonderland but reassuringly the aging millennials still sported fading tattoos. Even if the next generation disapproved.

After the Great Storm is a fascinating deep dive into the future that strays only slightly from our current concerns. The personal becomes political and Alice’s story forces the reader to explore their own morality as we watch Alice consider what she would do for her family.

There’s some terrific speculative and climate based fiction coming out of Australia and After the Great Storm is well worth your time for a glimpse towards tomorrow.

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