The Big One is coming, whether it’s the big earthquake that could liquidize hillsides or the big revelation that threatens to tear a family apart.
And the Sparrow family is already on the verge of falling apart. Olivia is divorcing, Sherman’s business is in constant legal trouble, and Morgan resents them both for leaving her to care for their ailing father. As the tensions between them multiply, the city itself is shaken to its foundations. The Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits Portland, and the Sparrows must come together to survive disaster—and stay on their guard against those who would take advantage of the chaos to further their own political goals.
Ooligan Press is excited to announce Faultland by Suzy Vitello, coming March 30, 2021. This near-future speculative-fiction novel is grounded in family drama between heartbreakingly human characters.
On a personal note, this book is everything I’ve hoped to work on in book publishing. As a lifelong sci-fi reader, I’m always looking for speculative fiction that focuses on heart and humanity as much as it brings up startling ideas about the future. Faultland is what I’ve searched for as a reader, and it’s an honor to help bring it to the world. As this book’s first project manager at Ooligan Press, I’m planning its entire production schedule and working with my team to develop its marketing plan from the ground up. Acquiring a new book always leads to an exciting flurry of work, but it’s especially wonderful when the book is something you’d pick up off the shelf just for fun. Faultland is that book for me.
Right now, editorial is working on copyediting the manuscript. The cover-design process is underway. We’re refining the copy we’ll use to market this book so that it will reach all those readers who will love it just as much as I do. We’re about a year out from publication, but that time will evaporate quickly in the face of all we need to do to give Faultland the life it deserves.
Suzy Vitello’s characters are the kind that make you feel like you know them as real people. She gets into the mud as she explores the Sparrow siblings’ hopes and failings, along with the drastic misunderstandings between them. The first time I read the Faultland manuscript, I knew that witnessing this family come together to survive a very real disaster was an experience I wouldn’t forget. I’m a Portlander myself, and my heart ached at the startling possibility that this could be the future of my city if The Big One were to hit. I know the streets, bridges, and neighborhoods that make up the destruction the Sparrows must navigate. The image of Portland in rubble has stuck with me, but the more human-scale struggles of the Sparrows prove to be just as dramatic.
Prepare for Faultland in March 2021!