Themes: Climate apocalypse, Cli-fi, Caribbean sci-fi, young adult, Jamaica
Read this if: You like a unique page turner
Don’t read this if: You prefer a slow burn
Links to purchase: Peepal Tree Press, Amazon
As far as literary genres go, Climate fiction (a.ka. cli-fi) is a fairly young one. J.G. Ballard, who published a series of sci-fi novels during the 1960s, in which human action led to large-scale climate disaster, could claim to be the father of the genre. However, it wasn’t until the early 2000s when books such as Margret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake series were published, that this genre really entered into the mainstream. Since then, a trickle of publications has become a proper deluge.
Diana McCaulay’s fifth published book, Daylight Come is one more added to the pile. With so many options to choose from, the question invariably is why choose to read this one. What makes this book different is the setting and the perspective of the author. The vast majority of climate disaster books you encounter are set in America. It is usually New York City that gets swallowed by a Tsunami, and Los Angeles which gets laid to waste by an earthquake. Daylight Come is set on the fictionalised Caribbean island of Bajacu. It is a small, and you could argue, inconsequential part of the world. Yet, to the people who live there, it is everything. There is still drama playing out, as the surviving bands of humanity fight for control over increasingly sparse resources.
Daylight Come is a frenetic story. It is nonstop action from the first chapter until the last page. The action centers on the lives of the teenager Sorrel and her mother Bibi. They are living in Bana, the capital city of Bajacu; the year is 2084. The radiation and light from the sun has become so intense that stepping outside during the day means instant death; you would be burned to a crisp. This has caused the rhythm of life to flip Humans are only able to go out at night, and therefore spend their days sleeping under shelter. The story kicks off when another hurricane season forces them to yet again evacuate from where they have been living, Sorrel decides that it is time to break the cycle; it is either time to find a life worth living, or die in the attempt:
“I want to leave Bana. I want to find other people. Young people like me. I don’t want to spend my life with you in this dead city… I don’t want to live like a bat or an owl or a worm. We’re all just circling around… You don’t have to come, you go look for another house. You keep going to work until they think you’re too old and then they’ll cut your water ration, they’ll take back the P1AK; maybe even your foodcards will be stopped. One day you’ll go outside to find food and the Squad will get you. Or the ferals. Or you won’t make it back before the sun comes up and you’ll roast like a pig on an old-time barbecue and the good people of Bana will walk past your corpse. Remember that body we saw before the shaving law, that day at the waterfront? Remember how the crtmen threw her on the sea? And how she crumbled and floated away like ashes? As long as we stay here, that’s what’s coming for us!”
Their goal to find a new life leads them on a journey into the mountains where it is rumoured that there are people living. To get there, they must dodge the sun, fight through packs of hungry feral animals, and avoid the slaving highlanders who have set up a base in the mountains.
‘Young Adult’ can be a bit of a pejorative label in the world of books; in many cases it is the bookish way of saying, ‘Not for adults’ i.e. not sophisticated. Yes, the protagonist of Daylight Come is a 14 year old girl, and yes the book is a sci-fi page turner. However, it would be incorrect to say that there isn’t anything here for adults. Personally, I couldn’t put the book down, reading it straight through in one sitting. The world is well-imagined, and the plot exciting. That is reason enough to pick it up if you are looking for your next page turner.