June 24, 2025
Reading this book about a woman at the very end of her pregnancy, navigating the immediate aftermath of a disastrous earthquake in Oregon while 6 months pregnant, myself, may not have been my best idea but - what can I say? - I love to torture myself.
Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when an earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. Not just any earthquake, but the earthquake - The Big One that’s been long warned of and anticipated (also known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake). Her bag with her phone, wallet, and keys is gone, power and cell service are out anyway, and so, with no other options, she starts walking. Along the way, we learn more about her, her relationship with her husband, and her late mother.
At the same time, Annie is grappling with what her life with a baby will look like and whether she’s even happy with the way her life has been going so far, especially as a creative who struggles to find the time to indulge that aspect of her life - something I (and, I think, a lot of people) can relate to.
“I will write after work and on the weekends. That's what I tell myself. And, sure, I set my alarm for 5:00 am once or twice. But who has any good ideas at 5:00 am? It's like life is this powerful river, of doing laundry and buying groceries and driving to work and scrolling on my phone, and the weekends are so short.”
And later she describes her life with her husband, “We eat frozen pizza, change the Brita filter, spend hours on the couch looking at Instagram while watching Netflix, go play trivia at the neighborhood pub with another couple we don't like that much but are too lazy to break up with. [...] Is this life? The thing we were all seeking since those afternoons after school, when we saw Friends on TV and dreamed that one day we would be all grown up and get coffee with friends and hang out on a couch in an apartment. Sometimes it seems like your father and I have spent not just years doing this but eons. An infinite amount of time spent unloading the dishwasher and waiting in line at the grocery store.”
Other times, she wrestles with the concept of even bringing a child into the world, and a life, in which so many things are horrible and unfair. How does one reconcile with that?
As well as the fact that she gets to have a child when so many people who want children so desperately are never able to do so.
"I lie awake, one hand on my stomach, imagining the parents in their driveway. An empty car seat behind them. How do you get out of the car that holds the car seat of your child who is dead? These are the things I'm trying to figure out.”
None of these concerns are ever really wrapped up in a satisfying way, because how could they be? We can only go on and do our best with whatever happens. Just as Annie comes across a number of people that we come to worry about, but don’t ever learn what eventually becomes of them. She is a part of their story, and they a part of hers, for only a short period of time. And everyone does their best, but sometimes the world is ugly and bad things happen. We can only go on - keep moving, keep walking, keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when it feels impossible.
Annie’s journey feels almost biblical, like a fable, as she encounters humanity in its rawest form and is forced to confront, and push past, her limits of what she feels capable of. At every moment, she feels too tired, too overwhelmed, simply incapable of going on, but she does and she finds that she is, in fact, able to - a sort of allegory for the process of labor and birth.
And living, in general.
This story meant a lot to me - as someone who is currently pregnant, as someone who lost a child, as a creative who wonders what my life will look like as a parent, as someone who worries what the world will look like as my child grows up. I think most people will find this book compelling but I think it will be especially meaningful to anyone who has been pregnant or had a child.
