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Emma Pattee’s debut novel Tilt takes place over the course of a single day, the day that the decades-overdue Cascadia earthquake rocks Portland. It unfolds via the wry inner monologue of Annie, who is a swole 37 weeks pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when it all comes down. Tilt follows her on a trek across Portland as she tries to walk home, coming across scenes both heart-warming and harrowing.
Pattee is a Mercury contributor and an environmental journalist whose climate reporting has been published by the Guardian and the New York Times, among others. Tilt’s trim, 227-page narrative reflects her dedication to research. It’s as evocative a portrait of what Portlanders can expect as anyone has published since Nathan Gilles’ “The First Four Minutes,” which Pattee noted as a major influence on the book, along with “The Really Big One” by New Yorker writer Kathryn Schultz, which won Schultz a Pulitzer.
We asked Pattee to meet us at the Cascades Station IKEA, one of her old writing haunts and the place where the novel begins. There she showed us that the cafeteria coffee is free for members, and membership is free.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
PORTLAND MERCURY: I read this book in a single day, almost a single sitting. It’s not long, and yet there’s a really powerful arc to it. When I told my boss the elevator pitch, he said: “I can’t believe that hasn’t been written; it’s such a good idea.”
EMMA PATTEE: Now it is, after so much revision. In writing groups, nobody really understood what I was doing; everybody thought it was really weird. And I think a lot of people thought it was satire. It is funny, but I don’t know that it’s a comedic romp.
Even before the earthquake, Annie is using humor to cope with her feelings. She’s over nine months pregnant, and she’s shopping alone, more or less, because her husband is focused on his artistic practice. Does that mirror your experience?
No, my husband is very down-to-earth, and I’ve learned from him—well, I was one of those millennial children who were told they were really special and could have it all. I’ve learned from him and from having child-ren that a lot of that is noise. That was one of the things I wanted to show in this book. Something huge happens, and she has to come to terms with things that are so much more important than fame and success. I wanted to write about a shock point.
Something that makes other worries insignificant.
The idea of the book came to me at IKEA when I was very pregnant, shopping for a crib, okay? And the building started to shake, because it does when the trucks go by, and I thought it was an earthquake, because I was totally out of my mind with anxiety about the earthquake.
There are parts of this book that talk about Portland’s ongoing problems with unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. What came first? Did you write the book because of URM or find out about URM while writing the book?
My anxiety came first. And then the book came from the anxiety. When I read the New Yorker article, in 2015, I wasn’t anxious. Amazingly, I was not anxious. And then I got pregnant. And I felt IKEA shake when some trucks drove past, and I became really, really obsessed with the earthquake. Buying an inflatable boat obsessed.
Did you buy a boat?
We moved to a house that is (maybe) going to withstand the earthquake. So, anxiety first, then book, but as soon as I started writing the book, I knew that I had to have an elementary school in it. It’s funny, when I was pregnant, I don’t know if I associated myself with one day having an elementary school age kid. And now that the book is coming out, I have one. I see my friends really grappling with this because their kids are going to these schools. Basically, any friend whose kid goes to Portland Public Schools, I’m like: “Don’t read my book.” Or if you’re going to read it, don’t read these pages.
I would call that section the book’s climax. However, while so much of Tilt is hyper-accurate, the school you portray is fictional.
That was the one detail in the book that I changed. I ended up setting that scene at Revolution Hall because it’s not a school, but it used to be one. [It’s also not on the city’s URM list -eds.] Every street in the book is a street I’ve walked down. I rode a bike while nine months pregnant to make sure it would be plausible. But I didn’t want to set the school scene at an existing school because I felt it would be fear mongering. I didn’t write this to scare parents. My goal, which I hope I achieved, is a fiction book that feels non-fiction. Everything about the earthquake was as accurate as I could make it.
Are you an earthquake prepper?
Yes, I am. But I’m embarrassed to say that I’m like, that person who buys the flashlight, but doesn’t have batteries, buys the huge water canisters, and doesn’t put the water in it. You know, that kind of thing?
Well, I could probably just fill my canisters up from the broken fire hydrant when it happens.
Is that what you’re banking on? This book has given me so much—and writing about climate change, being an environmental journalist, has given me so much compassion for our inability to prepare.
Tilt really captures that haunting feeling where someone is just gone. The uncomfortable reality is that if/when the big earthquake hits, a bunch of people will just be gone and we may never know what happened to them.
We’re seeing that in Gaza right now; on such a massive scale. And you’re confronted with not knowing, and you have to decide how hard you’re gonna search. It’s been interesting to talk about this book in other cities, because to them an earthquake is a plot device. But it’s like, no. This is a real thing. It’s not a joke.
By the end there’s a strong shift in Annie’s perspective. And the reader has been there with her, so they may feel it too. Letting go of one thing to get a better hold on something more important.
The book started out as a way to come to terms with the fact that I was pregnant, feeling like: “I’m never gonna be the hot young writer. I’m never gonna be a 35-under-35 luminary.” And yet, in writing the book, I have sort of achieved my biggest dream.
Right, just before I came to this interview, I saw that Tilt is on a list of recommended books in the New York Times.
It’s been really surreal. NPR called it “exciting fiction.” It’s really cool, and I’m so hopeful that—well, when I started writing this, my biggest dream for this book was that it will mobilize people around Portland schools. I know I sound like a broken record, but it really is the passion of my life.
Tilt is available Tues March 25. Emma Pattee appears in conversation with Margaret Malone at Powell’s City of Books, 1001 W Burnside, Mon March 31, 7 pm, FREE
