Hardcover
Published 2025 by St. Martin's Press.
In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. …
In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.
All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most – love and work, community and knowledge – will survive.
Well-written, gripping, and cinematic. Pretty bleak through a lot of it, but then somewhat hopeful as well by the end. I loved the protagonist, Nonie, and the book definitely lodged some indelible images in my mind.
Blurb said, "If you liked Station Eleven, you'll like this". I think that was spot on.
Not to say it is the same story retold, but the same kind of story. Near future dystopia, when the polar regions have completely melted and sea levels have risen 80m (260ft), flooding New York city. All the standing water has become poisonous with chemical run off, etc
After another massive hurricane, a young teen girl, her older sister, father and friend must make it safely out of the city to a place Upstate
I tore through this one. A history of the near future written in urgent prose and brief chapters. An adventure story of a family attempting escape from a flooded New York. A coming of age tale. Excellent.
