Playground

Powers’s (The Overstory) novel begins with a creation myth. Ta’aroa makes an egg to house himself, cracks out of his shell, and uses the shards to make the world. It’s a glorious start to a transcendent novel about love and what humanity has done to our damaged world. Marine biologists Evelyn and Bart love each other but even more, Evelyne loves the ocean. Still diving in her 90s, she lives in Makatea, French Polynesia (population 82). Rafi and Todd were high school buddies but also antagonists, Rafi twisted by his parents’ anger toward white people, Todd ignored by white parents unable to see him. They bond over Go and room together in college. Rafi meets Polynesian artist Ina, everything he could want. But it can’t free him from his conflicted relationship with a world he can’t accept. Decades later, mega-rich Todd embraces a project to transform the world by creating artificial islands floating on the sea; the residents of Makatea must vote on whether to accept the project. Todd and Rafi meet again but Todd, who now has dementia, can’t communicate. The book ends unresolved. What will the future hold for Makatea? And us?