Next Stop

Resnick debuts with a striking and unabashedly political fable set in an alternate present where the nation of Israel vanishes into a black hole. The story follows tech writer Ethan Block and magazine photographer Ella Halperin, who are raising Ella’s young son, Michael, in an unnamed city loosely modeled on New York, where residents are dismayed by the First Event: Israel’s disappearance. As other, smaller black holes form in cities around the world, “sucking in birds, clouds, light, sounds, Jews,” some Jewish people feel a strong “pull” toward them, believing the holes provide an escape from persecution. Their migration to the holes causes others to scapegoat Jews for the black holes’ existence. With antisemitism on the rise, Ethan and Ella are forced into a ghetto called “the Pale,” where they try to get on with their lives (“No one talked much about what they saw or did not see”), until encroaching civil unrest compels them to make an irreversible decision for their and Michael’s safety. Resnick skillfully uses the raw materials of postapocalyptic fiction and speaks lucidly to his Jewish characters’ legacy of displacement. This timely tale will appeal to fans of speculative fantasies by Michael Chabon and Lavie Tidhar. (Sept.)