MY VOLCANO

A genre-bending novel that circles a volcano mysteriously rising from the Central Park Reservoir.

On June 2, 2016, a jogger observes a geological protrusion slowly emerging in Central Park. Three weeks later, the formation, now determined to be a volcano, has grown to 2 1/2 miles tall and is upending life in New York City. Around the story of the volcano’s appearance Stintzi weaves the lives of the novel’s diverse characters, including a folklore professor, a Mongolian shepherd, a White trans science-fiction writer, a manager at the “emotion-managing service” startup Easy-Rupt, and an 8-year-old Mexican boy who is thrust back in time to Tenochtitlan in 1516. As the characters’ lives intersect, run parallel, and mirror each other, they experience an array of transformations: One slowly becomes a green network that incorporates all life in its path, while another discovers that she is turning to stone. In the background lurk the Otherwise, otherworldly beings capable of numerous rebirths. Among the narrative sections, Stintzi intersperses the dates and victims of real-world violence in 2016, including the Pulse nightclub shooting and the shooting of Alton Sterling by police officers in Baton Rouge. At times, this ambitious novel can feel unwieldy, with its weighty subject matter and complex, formal innovation. However, Stintzi has a gift for meticulously crafted worldbuilding and captures the tender drama of human (and, in this novel, extrahuman) relationships. Patient readers will be rewarded by their arrival at the book’s dazzling conclusion.

A vibrant ecosystem of a novel that deals honestly with the beauty and horror of human and ecological connectedness.