3.5 stars, I enjoyed this weird little apocalypse novella! I didn’t realize this was a sequel but I intend to go back and read the beginning of Tetley’s tale as well. I loved hearing about the end of the world, a literal heap of trash, from the ever-hopeful voice of Tetley.

I’ll always love Valente’s prose, and this novella does NOT disappoint! The language is absolutely beautiful, and the post-apocalyptic world created within it is so unique and stunning and will leave you full of existential dread. I adored Tetley, and the way remnants of the world were called back into existence after the whole world is drowned. This book is so special and definitely worth the read!

The Past Is Red is a post apocalyptic coming of age novel by Catherynne M. Valente. Released 17th Aug 2021 by Macmillan on their Tor Forge imprint, it's 160 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a beautifully wrought story; often breathtakingly beautiful and angry and sad all at the same time. The language is simple but brutally direct. I would normally classify it as YA/NA but in this case the language is -very- rough throughout, so for librarians recommending to younger patrons, the language and content are definitely things of which to be aware. For fans familiar with her oeuvre, this is a novel length retelling which contains and expands on the novella The Future is Blue , and serves as a sequel.

I was enthralled by the story. Protagonist Tetley Abednego is heartbreakingly sympathetic and easy to care about and grows from an almost everyman character to a prophetic, messianic presence changing everyone and everything around her profoundly. Despite the sober dystopian setting and hopelessness, there are a fair number of truly humorous moments which surprised a laugh out of me along with some small fleeting glimmers of hope.

As stated before, the language is often rough, lots of cursing and some moderately explicit (consensual and implied non-consensual) sexual content. There is also lots of physical violence, brutality, death, and illness (they're one of the last scattered human settlements on a drowned destroyed Earth, so it's all in context).

The audiobook has a run time of 5 hours 1 minute and is expertly narrated by Penelope Rawlins. There is quite a lot of rapid dialogue in the book and Ms. Rawlins performs remarkably well, managing multiple disparate accents and voices in rapid succession and performing characters who are male, female, old, young,and even inanimate flawlessly. The production and sound quality are top notch.

This book made me quite sad and angry, amused and wistful, often at the same time. It's abundantly clear that was absolutely the author's intention.

Five stars for the book. Five stars for the audiobook and narration.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I've been a huge fan of C. M. Valente ever since I read the Deathless a few years ago and getting this arc made me truly happy.

Horrifying, dark, amazing, hopeful. That's how I would describe this book.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she's the only one who knows it. She's the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it's full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.
~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

I loved every part of this book and Tetley is such a remarkable character. Even in just 160 pages, there is incredible character development and everything seems so important, not a sentence too much.

The Past is Red is science fiction, but honestly, I don't it's too far from reality considering that we do have a literal Garbagetown floating in the ocean, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. If you don't know what that is, please read an article about it on the National Geographic website, it's explained in a way anyone can understand.

I honestly hope that this made you a little bit curious about this book and that you'll decide to read it.

Five stars from me and I recommend to everyone to read it!

The latest novella, The Past Is Red from Catherynne M. Valente, is written in her avant-garde style and comments on climate change, love, despair, and happiness.

Tetley is our storyteller, our heroine, living on Garbagetown, a floating island of garbage. In a mythical, fanciful way that is Valente's handiwork, the island comes to life in sections and people, making it otherworldly and fairytale-esque. But there is no fairytale here.

Garbage town floats on the surface of the planet, which has become nothing but a watery wasteland. But, unlike the Mad Max post-apocalyptic Waterworld, there isn't much to threaten the lives of the people who eke out an existence on the pile of floating debris.

This tale is more of a slice of life; a peek into the world after climate change has completely ruined the way we live, and life becomes something a little less beautiful and more about base needs. Yet still, there is love, and there is friendship, and there is despair. Tetley takes us on her journey, living in the new world of garbage, romance, banishment, and at last, peace.

The Past is Red is funny and dark. Valente delivers another story that is epic in imagination and beautifully woven.

Catherynne M. Valence flexes her writing muscles once again with The Past is Red, a strange, heartbreaking, gorgeous, and lovingly made tale of the apocalypse and transformative love. The Past is Red asks the question, “what can’t Catherynne M Valente do?”

Tetley Abednego lives on a floating garbage patch somewhere in the Pacific. This is post-apocalyptic. The world has been drowned by climate change, brought about by Fuckwits (that's us). Garbagetown is all that's left. This is a slice-of-life novella without any real plot. Incidents come and go, but not always in chronological order (or is it me just getting confused). Tetley is an upbeat character despite becoming a pariah for taking action to save Garbagetown from itself. I'm glad this was only a novella as I found this a difficult read because of the quirky style. I read one or two reviews that suggested it was funny, but I must have had my sense of humour switched off. This book manages to be depressing, disturbing, and moderately hopeful at the same time.

I know you come to a book review site to find books that can help you escape from the world, but unfortunately I am that guy, the one who brings you screaming back to reality. I am talking, of course, about climate fiction, and boy was this book a treat. I’ve only read one other book by Cathrynne Valente (Radiance) and it holds an incredibly special place in my heart. So to finally come back to her writing feels like a warm embrace. The Past is Red, by Cathrynne Valente, is an earnest and eccentric story that explores a terrifying future while delivering an impassioned plea to reconnect with the world.

The Past is Red follows Tetley Abednego, the most beloved girl in Garbagetown. Technically, the book is two short stories that detail Tetley’s life, before and after the event that would define her forever. Tetley lives in a future where the world has been entirely flooded, not a spot of dry land in sight. Only a few floating communities exist, and Tetley makes her home on the floating trash patch of Garbagetown. She seems to be the only one who understands that Garbagetown is a beautiful wonderland willing to provide for the people who live on it. But when a hope from the past, promising a return to the future, shows up in one of the ports, Tetley becomes conflicted. Is there really still hope for the residents of Garbagetown, and where exactly does it lie?

I adored this story. There is a lot to love about The Past is Red, but it would not shine as brightly if Tetley was not as charming and engaging as she is. She is a force of nature, bringing a wonderful mix of cynicism and compassionate sincerity to every interaction. She is willing to bear the weight of the world, whether she carries it like Atlas upon her shoulders or endures it through a series of fist shaped blows. She is angry and frustrated, but Valente takes great care to make the reader angry with Tetley, instead of as an object of her scorn. She makes you love her home and want to explore Garbagetown’s many facets along with her and learn the many intricacies of life. At first, Tetley feels absurdly sympathetic due to her antagonistic relationship with her fellow Garbagetowners. However, Valente straddles the line of absurdity, giving Tetley an almost endless reserve of tenacity and resilience, bridging the gap to empathy with Tetley. Valente has this special talent to breathe magic and beauty into things that seem contradictory, making her writing pop in a sea of sameness.

Garbagetown is a pure delight, feeling both depressing yet entirely magical with a vague halo of hope. Valente manages not only to make the floating trash patch feel like a future home, but one that is suited to the needs of those who live on it. It has sections of specific types of garbage, showing off different ways people have adapted to living within their means in comedic but austere ways. There is Candle Hole, a section entirely of candle wax, where if someone wants to burn your house down, they have to hold a torch to it for hours. Electric City boasts the only working motors and lights and Pill Hill is just endless piles of unlabeled drugs that people take russian roulette style to drown their worries. Valente sets the mood with each new section, while also fully realizing her themes of reduced consumption and managed use through Tetley’s travels through the land. It feels like an apocalyptic candyland theme park complete with discarded wrappers as tumbleweeds.

If Garbagetown and the Tetley are stars of the show, Valente’s writing is the supporting cast, crew, writers, and production team. It’s full of vitality, snark, and truths laid bare. The story is told non-linearly, never really giving you an idea of where you are in Tetley’s life. It’s confusing at first, but patience reveals how cleverly Valente weaves it into the nature and themes of the story. And if you’re not one for swearing, you’ll have a hard time getting through this book as ‘fuckwit’ litters every page. It’s full of purpose and vitriol, eventually becoming a staple word, but one that doesn’t lose meaning with extended use. Instead, it gains deeper context and transforms itself into something all encompassing. It’s so useful and powerful, it’s ingrained in my own head for Valente’s intended purpose, to describe us. It’s amazing how delicately Valente handles the subject matter, pointing it directly at us while holding out a hand asking the reader to join her.

Valente’s writing is both brash and whimsical, providing levity and urgency to her themes. While a lot of the book can feel like a comedic screed against the indulgences of today, it’s written with a sincerity that provides a way to label the problems of today, arming the reader to fight those problems. It isn’t necessarily a collection of how to solve those problems in a physical way, so much as provide an outlook that would provide the mental soil to cultivate such solutions. The Past is Red is exactly what I was looking for in climate fiction and Valente perfectly captures my feelings while providing an avenue for them to run.

Rating: The Past is Red 9.0/10
-Alex

3.5 stars

The Past Is Red is a dark and funny dystopian novella, about a near future where the world has sinked under the sea and giants rafts of garbage are the only lands left. One of these rafts is called Garbagetown, I loved Valente's idea of separating the island in districts of different garbage, so you have a district full of old candles and wax, a district where it's nothing but clothes, or books, or pills, or electric devices. It reminded me of a picture book I read when I was young.
The story follows Tetley, the most beloved and hated girl in Garbagetown, we learn her story and her life, what she did to be so hated,
It took me some time to get into the story and to get used to the writing style, but once I was hooked I quite liked the plot and the universe Valente created. And I particularly liked Tetley's way of seeing things and seeing the world, of making the best of the worst situations in a kind of messed up but hopeful way.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Past is Red, by Catherynne Valente, is a magical story of treasure among the rubbish of a dead past. Tetley is an outcast, rejected by the people of Garbagetown – one of the islands of trash floating freely on the global ocean of a drowned Earth. She is blamed by everyone for a crime she committed as a child, but in her own way she is the only truly happy person in the world. The Past is Red takes us on a journey through a fairy tale land with geography made formed by the refuse of what came before, painting a touching meditation on happiness after the apocalypse.

The Past Is Red is the latest novella to come from the mind of Catherynne M. Valente, and boy is it going to hit you straight in the feels. This novella is one part of science fiction and one part post-apocalyptic, and it carries heavy notes.

Many post-apocalyptic tales have been set in a world where there's nothing but oceans. Yet this one feels different than the rest. Tetley Abednego is a girl of many things. She is loved. She is hated. She is free. She is tortured.

She knows a secret that would devastate the rest of her town, Garbagetown. The people would hate her more than they do now. But she knows the treasure of this secret, and that makes her special.

"Then we'd go to sleep and dream the same dreams. We always dreamed the same dreams, which was like living twice."

Ow. My heart. It felt so heavy after reading The Past Is Red. This novella really wormed its way into my heart and soul, and it left some damage behind. I don't want to sound like I'm discouraging you from reading it – the opposite is true.

It just so happens that Catherynne M. Valente's writing is so powerful that you can't escape the import of her words. They're beautiful and heavy at the same time. In fact, her words are very much a contradiction, much like her leading character.

This is a novella that must be read and experienced. Reading a review will never do it justice; that much I can promise you.

An intriguing novella. I've enjoyed much of Valente's work, and THE PAST IS RED is another interesting and well-written story. It's not my favourite of the author's books, but it is filled with some interesting and imaginative twists on the genre, some great writing, and a blend of tones that works rather well.

Read this because I fell in love with Catherynne Valente's writing with Deathless. The Past is Red is further proof of this author's command over the 26 letters of the english alphabet.

The world is both on fire and drowning. We are all living on borrowed time on this planet of ours, and if we’re not careful–and we’re not, not right now anyway, despite government promises–we will, if we’re lucky, have to live in a place like Garbagetown.

“My name is Tetley Abednego, and I am the most hated girl in Garbagetown.” And so author Catherynne M. Valente begins her bleak but hopeful novella The Past Is Red. It began life as a short story called The Future Is Blue, which Valente wrote early in 2016. In her afterword, which is definitely worth reading, Valente explained that Tetley’s voice stayed with her for a long time and she wanted to see how she grew from being a hated girl to a hated adult, but still keeping her compassion, composure, and willingness to explain the truth to her fellow town people no matter the cost to herself. So she wrote The Past Is Red. This edition contains both stories and is a compelling, uncomfortable, but necessary work of post-apocalyptic fiction that hits home hard and fast.

Garbagetown is exactly how it sounds. It’s a “landmass” made up of garbage that came into being when the climate change and the carelessness of Fuckwits (i.e. us humans) destroyed what was left of habitable Earth. Apparently there is a Garbagetown the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean, but it hasn’t risen above water yet. That time may soon come in the next one hundred or so years. On Tetley’s Earth, our future Earth, dry land is but a memory. In fact, for Tetley, Garbagetown is all she and the others have ever known. When a cruise ship calling itself Brighton Pier docks at Garbagetown, offering its citizens the promise of dry land if their willing to share electric power with them, Tetley sabotages the plan to expose the truth: there is no dry land out there. Her punishment is regular beatings and name-calling, for which she thanks her assailants for their instruction.

During the course of her journey in this strange and dangerous world, Tetley has a couple of travelling companions. As a child she had a close relationship with her twin brother Maruchan, until the time comes when she doesn’t. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asks him nightly. One day he replies, “An only child,” and that’s that for them. She falls in love with Goodnight Moon, a boy from Electric City, but even that relationship turns sour after the events of Brighton Pier. Later, as an adult, she talks to someone she calls Big Red, but we don’t find out who or what this person is until the end, and it’s a surprising revelation. Once again, Tetley finds herself with a choice to reveal the truth, and cause more trouble for herself and the people around her, or to continue living her life in the only world she has ever known. The answers lie with Mister, a crystalline artificial intelligence that is reminds the reader of Alexa.

Humanity’s future is bleak, and Catherynne M. Valente doesn’t pull any punches about how things will work out for us in the not too distant future. But behind this bleakness is a strange kind of hope. Tetley, through some amazing prose and imagery, is a truth-bearer. She knows we’re all we have left and we have to accept responsibility of where we go next. Valente, in this novella, has created a world that is heart-breaking but inevitable–if we’re not careful. Tetley’s voice shines in these pages, and although her follow Garbagetown citizens may hate her and wish her harm, we most certainly don’t. She may be the only hope humanity has left.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Tordotcom for providing me with an ARC of The Past Is Red. Catherynne M. Valente’s novella is on sale now.

This is without a doubt a book that if I had not been reading a review copy, I would have DNF'd this after the first few chapters. I'm so happy I didn't. This book has multiple points where the language is so unique to the story, that if I took a paragraph and read it out of context, it would most definitely sound like gibberish to an on-looker. This is definitely quite off putting, and made me think twice about continuing to read it. The main character also has a quite disjointed perspective of garbagetown, the setting, but I suppose that's to be expected given the state of her world. However, the thing that this book really excels in is its take on the effects of the climate crisis and the state of our Earth. It takes a bit to realize that that's what this book connects to, but when you do, it puts everything into perspective. This books also has a statement about income inequality near the end which made reading this book completely worth it for me. If you decide to pick this up, I recommend you take the plunge and see the book through. I think you'll find its broader connections are worth the read.

One of the things I especially love in this book is the notion that the past was not necessarily great. One of the things that post-apocalyptic fiction always does is romanticize what once was, but Tetley, dear Tetley, does not believe in any of that. Living in a civilization that is built upon the literal garbage of the world that came before, Tetley isn't taken in by the gadgets and the monarchs of old earth; instead she finds happiness in the smallest discoveries: participation trophies, a flower blooming against all odds, trying a food she's never had before, and finding books that aren't entirely destroyed.

I was much more enamored with the second part of the story. The first part felt a bit surface-level, but the second part sank its claws in deep and didn't let go until the last page.

“The kind of hope I have isn’t just greed going by its maiden name. The kind of hope I have doesn’t begin and end with demanding everything go back to the way it was when it can’t, it can’t ever, that’s not how time works, and it’s not how oceans work, either.”

In "The Past is Red" by Catherynne M. Valente, waters have risen over the land and what humans are left live on floating islands of garbage left behind by the ancient ones who ruined the planet, called "the fuckwits." (That's us, by the way.) There's an entertainment barge that travels between them, bringing news and excitement and the promise of dry land, but otherwise everyone just tries to survive on the refuse and leftovers from the past.

Tetley Abednego grew up here, and she loves it. She sees the beauty in sunlight on the old batteries and makes companions out of what she finds. Raised in Candlehole -- where are the discarded candles are piled in half-melted heaps -- she travels to different areas in Garbagetown and seems naively oblivious to the fact that most of the people there hate their existence.

Until she commits an unspeakable act, and turns the whole island against her.

"The Past is Red" is sort of in two parts and sort of a collection of stories and isn't always reliable since Tetley is telling the story and is the damndest stew of bitter recrimination and endless optimism, all told in Valente's style, which is Whimsical Realism. (Just made that up.) She rarely repeats herself but Valente loves words and every line carries a fantasy feel to it, even when it's describing something utterly mundane. Reminds me a little of Zelazny in that respect.

She did repeat herself here, though. This is a companion piece or sequel or expansion or something of "The Future is Blue," a short story from a collection of the same name. You don't need to have read that one, it's included in the front of this book.

"The Past is Red" is a dystopia and a dire warning and a fun tale and an example of how you can choose to take what life throws at you and stay cheerful anyway.

I was initially so put off by the odd language and descriptions in this one, but let this be a lesson in 'pushing through to reach the treasure', because The Past is Red ended up being exactly that: a true gem. We've destroyed the Earth as we know it, and the few left have been surviving on a literal city-sized pile of assorted garbage and waste (made up into different districts according to material, i.e. Candlehole and Electric City)

Even amongst the despair and injustice, Tetley was able to express such heartbreaking joy and positivity that I wanted to both scream and weep, sometimes simultaneously. The social commentary on the state of our climate, the greed and wastefulness of our species, and the possible consequences of our disregard were SO, so powerful that pretty much highlighted EVERY paragraph. This was my first Valente, and it will most certainly not be my last!

An atmospheric mystery about the disappearance of resources leading to a watery post-apocalyptic world where we follow around the character who may have caused the disappearance.

This is the first book I’ve read by Catherynne M. Valente, and you can certainly tell it’s not the first book she’s written. The prose sings. The story demands you read it slowly to digest its poetry and the subtle references to Earth-that-was. It’s written in a more literary style than your average sci-fi novel, which isn’t my favourite because it requires more focus than I’m accustomed to; to get the most out of the story, you should pay attention to not just what is being said, but how it’s being said. The pacing also threw me for a loop (literally). The story jumps back and forth in time, and I have never been a fan of that narrative choice. That being said, this novella is incredibly clever and the worldbuilding drew me in from page one.

The Past is Red is a continuation of a short story that Valente wrote for an anthology called Drowned Worlds. The short story, “The Future is Blue,” is included at the beginning of this novella, detailing Tetley’s childhood as she grows up in Garbagetown, a floating settlement the size of Texas. Then, the story continues from adult Tetley’s perspective as she survives in this fascinating (and terrifying) post-apocalyptic world.

Tetley’s Unrelenting Positivity

As a nineteen-year-old recounting her childhood in Part One of the novella, Tetley views everything with love and appreciation. To her, Garbagetown is a place of wonder. She considers herself lucky, even though people tag her house with words like “Nihilist” and “Murdercunt,” she is “the most hated girl in Garbagetown” (for reasons unknown at the beginning of the story), and she gets beat up on a regular basis. Apparently, it’s the law that people can do anything they want to her, anything but kill her; she has to take it, and is even supposed to thank them for their “instruction” afterwards. Although we are never privy to a rape scene, this law heavily implies that people do more than beat her.

At first, I wasn’t sure if Tetley’s positivity was real or if she was deceiving herself and was, in reality, miserable. However, her upbeat attitude appears to be genuine. She really is looking at the “brighter side” of life.

I appreciate the author’s decision to create a bubbly character who is determined to enjoy life no matter what her circumstances. Her attitude is a fascinating contrast to the grimness of her situation. However, sometimes her optimism shifts from admirable to disturbing. In Part Two of the novella, twenty-nine year old Tetley has been living alone for a few years, and says that she misses being beat up and abused and recalls how “honored” she was that they would attach jumper cables to her skin (because her abusers used up precious electricity on her). Her tone is so genuine that it’s difficult to read this section as sarcastic. Taken at face value, that is a problematic narrative, but it does seem as though Tetley has become a little unhinged due to her time alone and becoming the scapegoat of an entire garbage nation (and who can blame her). As Part Two continues, Tetley is much more hurt and bitter than before, though her love of Garbagetown is unrelenting.

The Power of Pop Culture and Brand Names

I adore how Valente integrates pop culture and the longevity of brand names into the narrative. In the very first paragraph, we learn that Tetley has a bird named Grape Crush and a seal cub named Big Bargains. The fact that she would name her pets after something she read on an old soda can or shop sign makes perfect sense in a town full of garbage.

I also love the little bits of strangeness woven into the society—like how people leave home when they’re ten to “find” their name (you don’t bother getting a name earlier than that because so many people die before they reach ten years old). As a result, people are named things like Tetley, Time, Life, and Goodnight Moon.

But my absolute favourite pop culture reference is how Oscar the Grouch is revered as a saint (who else would be the saint of Garbagetown, after all?). Tetley even has a “St. Oscar” backpack to remind her that he’s always watching her back.

Humans are Amazing. Humans are Horrible.

In the afterword, Valente writes, “I wanted to write about a post-apocalyptic world where our civilization was not looked back on with awe and admiration, as it is in so many books of the genre, but disdained as the fuckwits we are, who wrecked a perfect biosphere because we couldn’t be bothered not to.”

Somehow, this book manages to be hopeful and discouraging at the same time.

I am encouraged by humanity’s will to survive. I am discouraged by the rampant abuse of others; it seems like there will always be people who want power and will stomp on anyone to get it, that there will always be people determined to hate instead of love. And, of course, the environmental message is on point.

Overall, the author utilized storytelling methods that I’m not the biggest fan of, but The Past is Red can’t be denied for its wit, cleverness, amazing character voice, and positive themes.