The Elephant Mountains (review)

In this novel set in a future impacted by global warming, fifteen-year-old Stephen was only supposed to stay with his survivalist dad in the Louisiana bayou through the summer and then return to his wealthy mother's home in New Orleans come fall. A series of violent hurricanes changes his plans, though, completely washing away Florida and leaving most of the rest of the South under water. After would-be looters kill Stephen's father, the boy is determined to find his mother, so he packs food, water, and weapons on an airboat and, with Angela, an older girl who also lost her parents to looters, he sets off to try to find his way to whatever might be left of New Orleans. Along the way, the two teens are sometimes welcomed by those have stayed with their property, but they are more often menaced by survivors who have turned savage in their panic, and only Stephen's constant vigilance keeps them alive. Stephen's spare, emotionally flat ruminations regarding his mother's licentious lifestyle and his own emerging sexuality reinforce the central theme of the text—how to preserve the possibility of love and attachment even when everyone you meet seems to have abandoned any semblance of human charity, and you yourself have to kill to survive. However, considering the outflow of compassion and heroic action that generally accompanies natural disasters of this scale in real life, this unrelentingly apocalyptic fiction rings false, as does the fact that the only character with any ability to plan effectively or consider consequences is Stephen himself. Despite its departure from reality, though, readers who have a sense of themselves as unsung heroes who would rise to such a challenge may relate to his character and relish the chance to exercise their own survivalist imaginations.