Under the Eye of the Big Bird

In this visionary speculative work from Kawakami (The Nakano Thrift Shop), set in a distant future where the human population has been devastated by an unknown cause, survivors have broken into small communities scattered across the globe. The remaining humans are overseen by clones called Watchers, who guide people’s development and reproduction, and are in turn assisted by AI-programmed cyborgs known as Mothers, who raise the clones and serve as midwives and nannies for natural-born children. As thousands of years pass under these arrangements, the communities evolve differently: one group develops psychic powers; another cultivates the ability to photosynthesize; another maintains their genetic diversity by splicing their DNA with animals. Eventually, the Mothers become a species of their own, left to grieve when the human race finally goes extinct. Kawakami falters at times with heavy chunks of exposition devoted to outlining the technology and other worldbuilding details. She enchants, however, with depictions of the future from her characters’ perspectives, such as a woman’s recounting of her community’s hybridization with animals (“My husband told me that his first wife had been of mouse origin. The next one was of horse origin, and the third, of kangaroo”). This will stay with readers. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency. (Sept.)