The Morningside

The striking if scattered latest from Obreht (The Tiger’s Wife) expands on a short story included in the New York Times Magazine’s Decameron Project, a 2020 anthology of Covid-19-related writing. The narrative is set in a near future where flooding has reshaped the coastal regions of the United States. In Island City, which bears a strong resemblance to New York, 11-year-old Silvia and her mother arrive from abroad to live with Silvia’s aunt Ena in the Morningside, a once-luxurious apartment building that Ena now manages. Silvia and her mother, who fled their war-torn homeland (referred to only as “Back Home”) years ago, have been brought over as part of a “repopulation” program to ensure people continue to inhabit Island City. At the Morningside, Silvia becomes obsessed with the mysterious Bezi Duras, an artist from Back Home who lives in the penthouse apartment with her three huge hounds, and is drawn by a young neighbor named Mila into dangerous nighttime excursions across the city. The plot arcs somewhat haphazardly between myth and reality, and the tone is a slippery mix of YA and literary fiction. Still, Obreht skillfully crafts this alternate world through Silvia’s determined efforts to make sense of both her present and her past, and adds deft touches of horror and magic along the way. Readers will once again be beguiled by Obreht’s lyrical imagination. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Co. (Mar.)