A surreal and magical novel of hope in the midst of apocalypse by the acclaimed author of Gob’s Grief—“one of the most revelatory novels in recent memory” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Chris Adrian’s debut novel, Gob’s Grief, was hailed as “a work unlike any that has come before it” (The Economist). Now, Adrian delivers a second work of visionary imagination in this magnificent tale of a children’s hospital that survives, afloat, after the Earth is flooded beneath seven miles of water, and a young medical student who finds herself gifted with strange powers and a frightening destiny.
Jemma Claflin is a third-year medical student at the unnamed hospital that is the only thing to survive after an apocalyptic storm. Inside the hospital, beds are filled with children with the most rare and complicated diseases. In this new-age Noah’s Ark, there are two of each kind of sickness. As Jemma and her fellow doctors attempt to make sense of what has happened to the world, Jemma becomes a Moses figure, empowered with the mysterious ability to heal the sick by way of a green fire that shoots from her belly.
Chris Adrian, a pediatrician and Harvard theologian, offers a work of stunning scope and mesmerizing detail that is “cleverly conceived and executed brilliantly” (San Francisco Chronicle).