Alison Theresa

When survival is a shared endeavour, who comes first?

Questions

What does safety mean in catastrophe?

Does survival depend on conformity or rebellion? And what happens if you disagree with the people you’re trying to survive with?

Who gets to be saved?

Thinking

It has often struck me how reports of disaster, catastrophe, and crisis, flatten experiences, as though nothing else is going on for people when they’re living through a catastrophe.

As though everyday ailments cease to exist – that bad back is no longer part of the story, period cramps, family conflicts and jealousies. Cancer, addiction, OCD. How do these figure into the chaotic world of a catastrophe?

Eat, Pray, Love has a sentence near the beginning that always annoyed me, so I won’t repeat it, but there’s a way to ask these questions without minimising the all-consuming nature of catastrophe. Especially ongoing catastrophes that last for weeks, or months, or years.

I’ve often wondered whether ‘safety’ during disaster is less about the disaster itself, and more about these other elements being acknowledged and cared for. The parent who doesn’t just want to talk about it being the end of the world, but also that pain that you’ve always experienced. The sibling who annoys you the way they did when you were teenagers, even though both your lives are under threat.

I’ve read two novels as part of my study that speak to some of these questions: The High House by Jessie Greengrass and When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall.

The High House is a story of a young woman whose stepmother, and to a lesser extent her father, is a prepper in a way that is completely logical and saves the protagonist’s life. The high house is set up with everything she could need for years, and for years after her father and stepmother have died in the environmental catastrophe. She lives in safety while those around her die. But she’s not alone, she’s taking care of her half-brother. The jealousies she had towards her stepmother, particularly in regards to her father’s affection and the child they had together, are in tension with her need for these resources she has been gifted. She conforms, while wishing she didn’t need to.

When the Floods Came is set in a future Birmingham, ravaged by both environmental and disease catastrophes, in a society which is highly surveilled. The narrator is a young woman living with her family. They are guarded against outsiders, and sure of their place together. They save a young girl, give her the name of their child who died, and raise her as their own. Who are they to offer safety to one, when so many are dying? The protagonist takes tentative turns towards the outside, but ultimately chooses her family. She conforms, while wishing she didn’t need to.

These stories present people conforming for their family, for younger siblings, for parents or the memories of them. When everything goes to shit, it’s the people who already know you who can see what you’re dealing with, outside the life-and-death. They love the whole person, not the one who exists amid catastrophe.

In some ways this seems obvious: it’s based on the caring relationship I spoke about last time. But in other ways I find it frustrating, and turn towards Lee Edelman’s critiques of reproductive futurism. How much are stories like this about protecting a certain kind of future – one in which children are centred (protect those young siblings!), which implicitly suggests saving the people who can or will create more children? How much is about saying that it’s biological family who will know and love you, while the world is falling apart?

There are plenty of examples of created family, particularly in queer literature, but when talking of heteronormative families – it’s biology first. How much of that is about assuming biology = safety, even though we know that’s not true? How much is an instinctive caring relationship that we don’t want to question? How much is a hidden assumption that the possible creation of future people must be protected?

In my novel, Pearl is determined to protect her created family, while Flannery and Joni are determined to create a new family, with a child. Whose desired future gets prioritised? And why? And how much are those everyday things that they know about each other centred or ignored when trying to understand each other’s motivations?