How High We Go In the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu - A Short Summary & Review

 How High We Go In the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu - A Short Summary & Review

By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review

Thoughts on life and love amid dark times and death.

A Short Summary:

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a speculative literary novel told through interconnected stories set in the wake of a devastating Arctic plague. Beginning with a father grieving the death of his daughter, the narrative widens to follow scientists, theme park workers, comedians, hospice staff, and even a stranded space crew as humanity confronts mass loss. Each chapter stands alone, yet together they form a mosaic of life reshaped by grief and adaptation.

Rather than focusing on catastrophe alone, Nagamatsu explores what people build in response to sorrow: new rituals, strange industries, desperate comforts, and fragile hope. The novel examines how love endures in the shadow of extinction, and how connection persists even when the world feels irreparably broken.

My favorite quote from the book:

"It's easy to be lost in fear. It brings people together, often for the wrong reasons."

Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go In the Dark

Questions to ponder while reading:

Do you have any rituals surrounding death?

Will rituals matter when everyone is dying?

My review:

There are novels about pandemics, and then there are novels about what grief does to the human heart. How High We Go in the Dark belongs firmly in the second category.

Sequoia Nagamatsu does not sensationalize disaster. Instead, he traces the quiet, often surreal ways humanity copes when death becomes ordinary. One of the most devastating chapters centers around a “suicide theme park” designed to provide a controlled, almost sanitized exit for terminally ill children. It is a concept so morally unsettling that it feels impossible, and yet the emotional logic of it is heartbreakingly human. That chapter lingered with me long after I finished reading. I struggled to let it go.

What makes this novel so powerful is its structure. Each story feels self-contained, yet threads of connection weave through them: family ties, scientific research, shared memory. The book asks uncomfortable questions: What do we owe one another in times of mass suffering? How do we honor the dead without losing ourselves? What does hope look like when survival itself feels fragile?

This is not an easy read. It is poignant and moving, often heavy. But it is also deeply compassionate. Even in its strangest moments, talking pigs, cosmic distances, dark humor,  the novel insists on love as the final answer. It reminds us that fear can gather people together for the wrong reasons, but love gathers them for the right ones.

If you are drawn to literary speculative fiction that prioritizes emotion over spectacle, something closer to Emily St. John Mandel than blockbuster dystopia,  this novel is worth your time. It is a touching, ambitious meditation on life and death, and one I found difficult to let go of once I turned the final page.

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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