Sequoia Nagamatsu is a Japanese-American writer and managing editor of Psychopomp Magazine, an online quarterly dedicated to innovative prose. Originally from Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay Area, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. His work has appeared in such publications as Conjunctions, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, Fairy Tale Review, and Tin House. He is the author of the award-winning short story collection Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone and teaches creative writing at St. Olaf College and the Rainier Writing Workshop Low-Residency MFA program. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife, cat, and a robot dog named Calvino.
"Moving and thought-provoking . . . You'll be impressed with
Nagamatsu's meticulous craft. . . . Well-honed prose, poignant
meditations and unique concepts . . . offering psychological
insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative
conceits. . . . How High We Go in the Dark is a book of sorrow for
the destruction we're bringing on ourselves. Yet the novel reminds
us there's still hope in human connections." -- New York Times Book
Review"Thoughtful explorations of how the survivors process death
and loss . . . Even the bleakest stories conjure up a memorable
image, and often that visual involves reaching upward: to the
stars, to a memory, or even just stretching your arms skyward at
the roller coaster's peak, whether or not you know how the ride
ends. . . . ambitious . . . achingly poignant . . . an emotional
roller coaster." -- NPR"Exactly the white-hot missive of hope,
humanity, and compassion you need . . . Each story is a marvel of
imagination . . . Rich in scope and vision, with each nested story
masterfully rippling across others, this is a visionary novel about
grief, resilience, and how the human spirit endures."
-- Esquire"Nagamatsu's novel isn't about hope, but about how things
change in the space between possible and impossible. Of course the
one thing that never changes, even or especially in tragic times,
is human nature." -- Los Angeles Times"Done artfully. . . . A
heartbreaking tribute to humanity." -- Entertainment Weekly, 5 Must
Read Books"Lovely and haunting." -- Wall Street Journal"Haunting
and hopeful story about grief, loss and the different ways we move
on . . . Deeply moving." -- NBC News"How High We Go in the Dark is
a truly genre-transcending work in which sense of wonder and
literary acumen are given boundless opportunity to shine." -- The
Guardian (UK)"This hauntingly beautiful story focuses on how the
human spirit perseveres through it all. With everything from a
cosmic search for home to a theme park for terminally ill kids and
a talking pig, it's a lyrical adventure that feels fantastical yet
familiar." -- Good Housekeeping, The 15 Best and Most-Anticipated
Books of 2022"[A] searing literary dystopia. . . . Each character
is intimately drawn as they grapple with a future that gives very
little freedom to hope or dream. . . . It feels like an archive of
personal stories about what the future may bring." -- Buzzfeed
News, 23 New Fantasy And Science Fiction Books We're Excited
About"How High We Go in the Dark is ambitious and intricately
plotted. A beautiful meditation on the way everything in this
world--no, in the universe--is connected. . . . The writing is
beautiful and immersive, and at times hypnotic. It asks both the
big questions and the small questions of what will become of us,
and even when the answers are complex, there remains the bright
beacon of hope." -- Roxane Gay"Haunting and luminous, How High We
Go in the Dark orchestrates its multitude of memorable voices into
beautiful and lucid science fiction that resembles a fitful future
memory of our present. An astonishing debut." -- Alan Moore,
creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta"How High We Go in the Dark
is wondrous not just in the feats of imagination, which are so
numerous that it makes me dizzy to recall them, but also in the
humanity and tenderness with which Sequoia Nagamatsu helps us
navigate this landscape, to find a way to survive while holding
onto the things that make us human. This is a truly amazing book,
one to keep close as we imagine the uncertain future." -- Kevin
Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See
Here"Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark is a sprawling,
epic debut that ventures from the Arctic to interstellar space,
from life to what may come after it. With precision and harrowing
prescience, Nagamatsu envisions the effects--both cultural and
planetary--of a mysterious, devastating pandemic; but he explores,
too, the astonishing commitment, resilience, and capacity for
resilience that enables life--human and otherwise--to reach for
survival. Sequoia Nagamatsu is a writer whose imagination is
matched only by his compassion, the kind we need to light our way
through the dark." -- Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling
author of The Immortalists "Through an imaginative journey that
spans centuries and worlds, Sequoia Nagamatsu artfully examines the
resiliency of humankind and the drive for a brighter future." --
Veranda, The 22 Most-Anticipated Books of the New Year"A
celebration of the resilience of the human spirit."
-- San Francisco Chronicle "Weirdly wonderful and weirdly powerful,
a book of speculative fiction so close to real life that its
heart-stopping events feel almost inevitable." -- Minneapolis Star
Tribune"An absorbing and heartbreaking contemplation on the very
nature of life, death, and what it means to be human. Stretching
across eons and worlds, these stories provide the power of short
narratives, while each builds on the larger text. The
novel-in-stories is a form that many writers attempt; Nagamatsu
clearly ranks among the masters. Beyond the sheer joy of reading a
well-formed text, this novel also presents massive themes in
smaller, intimate stories. This form allows us to become immersed
in the details of characters' everyday lives, individual struggles,
and personal grief, leaving us willing to absorb the larger whole
rather than being alienated. . . . It is a book as full of hope,
humanity, and possibility as the grief and loss of climate disaster
and pandemic laid unflinchingly bare." -- The Brooklyn
Rail"Nagamatsu's imagination is boundless, taking readers from
hotels for the dead to interstellar starships. Fans of sci-fi and
post-apocalyptic stories, look no further." -- Alma, Favorite Books
for Winter 2022"Fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven will love
this spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut." -- The Millions,
Most Anticipated Books of 2022"Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go
in the Dark follows humanity as it crashes, adapts, survives, and
rebuilds over the course of centuries." -- Bustle, The Most
Anticipated Books Of 2022"Impressive, far-reaching . . . Yes, this
is a plague novel, a pandemic novel, one that both honors
individual tragedy and asks us to widen our perspective--to look to
the future, to the stars. The chapters, which feel like linked
short stories, jump decades and centuries, imagining the long-term
effects of the Arctic Virus on the world and even the galaxy,
without losing touch with the smaller stories of the humans who
must contend with it." -- Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of
2022"Both epic and deeply intimate, Nagamatsu's debut novel is
science fiction at its finest, rendered in gorgeous, evocative
prose and offering hope in the face of tragedy through human
connection." -- Booklist (starred review)"Exceptional . . .
Nagamatsu masterfully folds more conceptual dystopian
stories--reminiscent of George Saunders's early 2000s short story
work--into the novel's broader climate and pandemic fiction story
line, stacking his narratives and lending a sheen of surreality to
even the most science-heavy moments. The result is an appealing
m�lange of literary and science fiction, with rich, mournful
language aiding the imaginative strokes. This work reflects the
best of what short fiction can accomplish, sketching memorable
characters and settings with economy, but Nagamatsu manages to
excel equally in the long form, subtly linking his narratives into
a handsome whole. If at the end there's no denying the bleakness,
Nagamatsu importantly resists nihilism, consistently finding beauty
and meaning in the darkness, even at the end of the world. . . . A
frightening, moving work about what it means to be human while
staring down our own extinction. Essential." -- Library Journal
(starred review)"Nagamatsu blends literary and visionary verve in a
narrative that's garnering comparisons to Cloud Atlas and Station
Eleven." -- Library Journal (Spotlight)"Those courageous enough to
sit with the novel's exquisite sorrows will be rewarded with
gorgeous prose, memorable characters and, ultimately, catharsis."
-- Bookpage (starred review)"Sequoia Nagamatsu's debut is beautiful
and unsparing in its depiction of a world reeling from a climate
catastrophe-driven plague. Though the universe these stories are
unfolding within is undeniably bleak, Nagamatsu imbues his
characters with a sense of cosmic hope and humanity." -- NPR, 14
books that NPR staff and critics are loving the most so far this
year"How High We Go in the Dark is not a plague novel; it is an
after plague novel. Sequoia Nagamatsu nimbly bounds through time,
space, and species while tackling the question, Where do we go from
here? My favorite kind of speculative fiction--philosophical and
hopeful; endlessly inventive, with a beating heart." -- Gabrielle
Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of The Storied Life of
A.J. Fikry"A novel that is both grimly timely while also moving
past our usual notions of time to reveal a wider view--Sequoia
Nagamatsu allows his story to unspool with such a great sense of
scope, freedom, and clarity, creating a stunning mosaic of
experience and humanness." -- Aimee Bender, New York Times
bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"As
ambitious as it is intimate, How High We Go in the Dark is both a
prescient warning and a promise of human resilience in the face of
any odds. Sequoia Nagamatsu masterfully connects each slice of life
into one epic and unforgettable tale, spanning centuries and
generations. His debut envisions a future that is at once wonderful
and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible. It reaches far
beyond our stars while its heart remains rooted to Earth, and
reminds us that our wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of our
world." -- Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of
The Priory of the Orange Tree"You can try to compare Sequoia
Nagamatsu to George Saunders or Charlie Kaufman or David Mitchell,
but his is a singular voice and this is a book so original and
wondrous and reality-shredding that it defies easy summary or
categorization, like a dream that feels more vivid than life.
Arctic plagues! Euthanasia theme parks! Hotels for the dead!
Talking pigs! Interstellar starships! It's brave and prescient,
completely bananas and yet absolutely moving, packed with humor and
heart. I loved it." -- Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth
Metal"Gorgeous, terrifying, compassionate. With funerary
skyscrapers, a generation ship painted with history, and a pyramid
of souls reaching for light, How High We Go in the Dark is both
powerful and original. Nagamastu elegantly dissects disaster with
an eye toward empathy and curiosity. At this book's center is a
great big, beautiful heart. An exceptional accomplishment that left
me equal parts hope and wonder." -- Erika Swyler, bestselling
author of The Book of Speculation"How High We Go in the Dark is a
book of incredible scope and ambition, a polyphonic elegy for the
possible, for all that might be won and lost in the many worlds we
make together: the world of our families, our civilization and our
planet, the planets beyond. Every tale in Sequoia Nagamatsu's debut
generates fresh wonder at all we are, plus hope for all we might
become, in these unforgettable futures yet to be." -- Matt Bell,
author of Appleseed"Easily one of the best books I've read this
year so far . . . Tender and dystopian, the pandemic novel is told
in a series of vignettes, each exposing a different pocket of
future society--and eventually connecting through characters and
circumstances. Nagamatsu sharply paints a picture of society
inevitably building industry out of grief . . . It's an ambitious
critique of late-stage capitalism, wrapped up in a series of family
dramas." -- Polygon, The Best Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books of
2022"Moving . . . Sequoia Nagamatsu's tender humor bestows a kind
of weary acceptance on the time-skipping, world-tilting story, even
as things get darker and weirder. . . . You'll enjoy the ride." --
Philadelphia Inquirer"A small, slim gem, one that I will likely
return to for the rest of my life. . . . How High We Go in the Dark
chooses to transcend the chaos and anguish of our pandemic lives .
. . to give us, in the tedium of fear and despair, a rare moment of
wonder." -- Nandini Balial, The Week"There are shades of Cloud
Atlas in Sequoia Nagamatsu's enthralling and sprawling sci-fi
debut. . . . An ode to human perseverance and the enduring nature
of love. From an unlikely love story that unfolds at a theme park
for terminally ill children to an intrepid grandmother's attempt to
find a new home planet for herself and her granddaughter, every
storyline within this dazzling novel will touch your heart." --
Popsugar"Sequoia Nagamatsu doesn't just grant us access into the
chasm of human experience; he plants a flashlight in our hands and
invites us to explore. Here we all are, together, navigating the
dark unknown. . . . Nagamatsu's dystopian narrative is both
prescient and cathartic, an intertwining of imaginative and
compassionate stories that give voice and validation to our very
real grief and longing, all the while limned with glimmers of hope,
virtual reality, and stardust." -- Cameron Finch, The Rumpus"In the
vein of David Mitchell and Emily St. John Mandel . . . Nagamatsu's
debut novel, following his story collection Where We Go When All We
Were Is Gone, lives up to those lofty comparisons and then some
with a feat of literary imagination set in the aftermath of a
climate plague. A work ten years in the making, it's accidentally
timely in some ways but it's also arriving just in time." --
Chicago Review of Books"With How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia
Nagamatsu has done the impossible: written a book expansive enough
to tackle the enormity of our climate crisis--and then gone
further, to capture our even larger capacity for creation. It is
clear from this book that Nagamatsu possesses one of literature's
most vibrant and generous imaginations. You will fall in love with
these characters and, in so doing, remember your love for the
world. How High We Go in the Dark rejects the idea of the novel as
the story of an individual and bravely takes on the collective
nature both of global warming and of how we can face it." --
Matthew Salesses, author of Disappear Doppelganger Disappear and
Craft in the Real World
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