It’s his best book. It’s not super close, either; The House on the Cerulean Sea, which is still a book I love immensely, is going to have to be demoted.(*) I sobbed at the end of this book. I am not a sobber. I do not sob, Goddammit.
This book got me.
The story is simple, and told quickly; Bright is a novella, clocking in at only 176 pages, and I read it in a single sitting. The world is about to end, and there is nothing we can do about it; a rogue black hole has been identified in deep space and it is heading directly toward Earth. At the beginning of the book there is about a month left until the planet and every living thing on it ceases to exist. This could have been a huge, doorstopper story, but Klune keeps the focus tight: a married couple, Don and Rodney, who are both in their seventies and have been together for over forty years, and have one last road trip that they have to undertake, one last task that they must complete together, before the end of the world.
I’m not going to tell you much more than that. Klune takes his time revealing the reason for the trip, focusing mostly on Don and Rodney’s relationship and the small number of other people they encounter along the way, including a young family who have not told their children what is coming, a roving community of hippies, and one unfortunate young woman whose mind has broken under the strain of waiting for the apocalypse. It’s clear that there is danger out there; there are references to some areas under martial law, and one panicked flight from a gunfight, but the focus of this book isn’t on a world gone mad or a perilous journey. There are some obstacles to overcome, but this is a quiet book about a quiet pair of men; Klune isn’t interested in telling an action story here.
My sole gripe is minor, and may actually be wrong: I’m pretty sure that a rogue black hole heading toward Earth would not have some of the effects that this black hole has. There’s some fuckery with gravity going on toward the end that I found kind of distracting (and there’s some interesting discussion about said fuckery in the author’s afterword, as apparently how much fuckery to include was a point of contention between author, editor, and early readers) and the black hole manages to eat several other planets on the way to Earth, implying they were all in a nice neat little row for it. This is possible but doesn’t happen very often. The gravity stuff is within artistic license. I’ll live, is what I’m saying, and the only reason it got to me is that I’m an astronomy nerd. The emotional core of the book does not care one whit about what that black hole should be doing, and the emotional core of the book is going to kick you in the ass.
Even if you’ve never read any of Klune’s books before, absolutely pick this one up. Read it on a day when it’s raining outside and you have a few hours to yourself and maybe you’re a little sad. It’ll be worth it.
(*) Third, The Bones Beneath My Skin; fourth, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, then everything else.
