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A Novel
by Emma Pattee
Book Reviewed by:Set over the course of one day, a heart-racing debut about a woman facing the unimaginable, determined to find safety.
Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen.
Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there's nothing to do but walk.
Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she's determined to change her life.
A propulsive debut, Tilt is a primal scream of a novel about the disappointments and desires we all carry, and what each of us will do for the people we love.
LATE MORNING
IKEA, NE Portland
So here we are, thirty-seven weeks pregnant, at IKEA.
Picture me, Bean, if you can picture anything inside of there. My belly distended, a blimp exiting sideways out of my body. I walk in stiff little jerky motions like a stork. Grip on to stair railings. Every few minutes, I have to press my hands against my lower back to stop my spine from breaking in half.
I look so disturbing that I make the other shoppers nervous; they watch me from the corner of their eyes to see what I'll do next. They stop me to say things like, Bet you're ready for this to be over, or You look like you're about to pop!
And IKEA. On a weekday. Dear god. Another reminder that I'm officially unimportant. Only the old people and college students and bartenders shop for furniture on a Monday. And of course the other pregnant ladies. Milling in the crib section like hungry alligators.
I'm wearing a lavender linen romper and Birkenstocks. The kind of ...
What are you reading this week? (5/1/2025)
In the past week I've read (and loved) both 'Austen at Sea' by Natalie Jenner (perfect for Austin lovers, coming May 6) and 'Tilt' by Emma Pattee (this was a wild, wild ride!) Right now I'm reading 'The Painted Veil' by W. Somerset Maugham, turns 100 years old this year. Time to read some of the ...
-Evonne_Benedict
The chapters detailing Annie's journey alternate with flashbacks to her life prior to the earthquake, a structure that helps break up the tension of the present-day chapters and lets the reader understand more of what Annie has been going through: the grief of losing her mother; the stress of impending parenthood; her strained relationship with her husband... After the earthquake, she must face her worst fears in a very literal sense, and fight to save herself, her child, and her relationship...continued
Full Review
(784 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek
Tilt is a remarkable debut—a gorgeous, haunting blend of a suspenseful survival thriller and a fierce portrait of maternal love. I was so mesmerized that I blew off all my responsibilities, threw all other reading aside, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting, loving every moment. Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State and Mobility
Tilt is a swift, exhilarating punch to the gut, the most embodied twenty-four hours of narrative I can remember reading. Through the eyes of the prickly, funny, and very pregnant narrator, we viscerally experience the surreal, unbearable, comic, and beautiful ways that humans behave in a crisis. The Road meets Nightbitch meets What to Expect When You're Expecting. I loved this novel.
Emma Pattee's debut novel Tilt follows one woman's journey across Portland after the city is hit by a devastating earthquake. Though fictional, the disaster is based on research that suggests such an event could take place in the not-so-distant future. Readers may recognize this future earthquake as "The Big One" from Kathryn Schulz's panic-inducing 2015 New Yorker article.
Portland sits on or near several fault lines, where seismic activity beneath the earth can trigger earthquakes. The most significant of these is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 700-mile fault off the Pacific coast that stretches from northern California to British Columbia. Here, two tectonic plates meet, with the Juan de Fuca Plate gradually shifting beneath the ...
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