We Are Unprepared (32 page)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

We Are Unprepared
is, in equal parts, a small gesture of activism and a love letter to the woods I grew up in.

When I set out to write the novel that had been swirling in my head for years, I knew for sure that it would be about our relationship to the natural world and what we stand to lose if we don't change course. I had just left the White House and, while I was proud of the unprecedented environmental steps taken by the Obama Administration, I was frustrated by the pace of progress and the tyranny of corporate interests.

I was also by then a mother. Our first daughter was learning to walk and I was pregnant with our second when I started research for this book. My husband, Dan, and I were spending less time discussing climate policy at cocktail parties and more time collecting acorns in the woods. In essence, our view of the natural world was small again. It was this intimacy that informed my direction for the story. I wanted to go deep into the fear and loss that we stand to suffer on an overheating planet. I wanted to consider the vulnerability of our relationships in light of this threat. So yes, this is a story about global warming and conservation, but no one wants to be lectured by their fiction; what I really wanted to do was explore just how tenuous our grasp on sanity and civility is in an uncertain world. That, and I love an apocalypse story.

This is not my first creative endeavor, but it is my first good and earnest one. After ten years in Washington, it took nothing short of an internal transformation to shed the cynicism and snark that stood between me and this work. I had to forget what I knew about political pragmatism and reacquaint myself with the desperate, unyielding idealism that my environmentalism was borne of. I had to open myself to the charge of naïveté from contemporaries. I went back to the woods I roamed as a child. And I prayed to more than a few pagan deities. It was my post-politics reeducation and I'm a better person for it.

For woods wanderers and apocalypse watchers alike, I hope you enjoy this story.

—Meg Little Reilly

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None of this would have been possible without my tireless agent, John Silbersack, and my brilliant editor, Kathy Sagan. Both of you took a chance on me and I'm so grateful.

With all my heart, I wish to thank my parents, Anne and Joseph Little, for showing me the woods and passing along your sense of adventure, awe and gratitude. You gave me idealism, and I promise to pass it along to my children. Thank you to my children, Josephine and Annabelle.

I have the love of my life, Daniel Reilly, to thank for so much. You never once questioned the probability of this endeavor or the wisdom of waking up at four in the morning to write fiction before going to work at the White House. For your encouragement and humor and everything else, I thank you.

And finally, thank you to the women and men working to address climate change and alleviate the human rights, economic and racial injustices suffered under it. We're all behind you.

WE ARE
UNPREPARED

MEG LITTLE REILLY

Reader's Guide

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Ash and Pia are chasing a romanticized idea of a more simple and sustainable life. Is this relatable to you, or do you consider it a misguided or perhaps even a privileged fantasy?
   
2. Do you think Ash and Pia would have made it as a couple in Vermont even if the superstorm had not happened? Why?
   
3. Which of the characters in
   We Are Unprepared
   do you consider to be “normal,” and which do you think of as “crazy”? Can extreme circumstances make sane people insane?
   
4. Which of the characters in the novel would you most behave like in these circumstances?
   
5. If you were facing the same weather disaster, would you align with the civic-minded mayor and Ash, or the prepper group and Pia?
   
6. Once the storm hits, civil society falls apart quickly, and the death toll begins to mount. Does this seem like hyperbole to you? Do you think local, state and federal governments are this unprepared for a superstorm?
   
7. Is it noble or selfish for Ash to want to adopt August? Does the lack of choices in a rural, devastated place change this calculation?
   
8. Fear drives characters in this story to religion, alcohol and guns. What other vices and comforts do we all turn to in anxious times?
   
9. Does the superstorm seem plausible here? Do you consider it science fiction or an inevitability in our future?
   
10. No explicit assertion is made in the novel that the changing weather patterns are caused by human behavior, though it's certainly implied. Do you perceive this story to be about man-made climate change or about chance? How might those different positions affect your opinion of the book?
    
11. In your own life, what aspect of the natural world do you feel most protective of? Is there a place or an experience that you want to shield from the effects of climate change?
    
12. Do you believe successive generations will have a different relationship to the natural world?
    
13. Do you believe fiction and art can influence public attitudes about climate change?
    

ISBN-13: 9781460395882

We Are Unprepared

Copyright © 2016 by Margaret Reilly

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