In Emma Pattee's Tilt, a young, heavily pregnant mother is in an IKEA in Portland, Oregon searching for a baby bassinet when a major earthquake levels parts of Portland and all but one bridge over the Willamette river. At first trapped, she's rescued but loses her purse and phone in the rubble.
Her rescue can also be viewed as a metaphor, a birth into a new life.
Her first goal is to track down her husband at his job working at a cafe. When she reaches the cafe, she finds out he lied about working and instead is auditioning for a play, something he said he wouldn't do with the baby's birth immanent. To find him, now she must find a way to cross the Willamette river on the only standing bridge.
The novel is organized around going from the present to the past, meeting her actor husband when she's had a first play produced and has a fantasy about becoming a famous playwright. When she meets her later husband, he has a fantasy about becoming a famous actor.
Each jump to the past brings us nearer to the present. We learn how she gives up her fantasy, but her husband has clung tightly to the idea that somehow he can become a famous actor.
The chapters in the past collectively operate as a series of jolts that affect her marriage; mini earthquakes, so to speak.
When she finally reaches the last bridge standing across the Willamette river, it's blocked. The metaphor is that it's one of the last bridges that connected her to her marriage to her husband.
The novel makes the young woman's grueling journey heart-felt, compelling, and painful. By the end of the novel, she's ready to begin a new life.
I very much enjoyed the soon to be mother's journey through the broken city, passing by many, many landmarks I'm familiar with.
Recommended.
