What Love Can't Do

by Kitty Beer

Book Overview

A daringly honest portrayal of the consequences of global warming, this tale explores family relationships against the dramatic background of environmental collapse. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891386549
• ISBN13: 9781891386541
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Plain View Press, LLC
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Relationships challenged by global warming

I hestitated to read what I thought would be a "sci fi" book but discovered it's mostly about how families cope. Relationships are central, even while they're deeply constrained by global warming realities. Beer describes each person with just a few words but in a way that I can picture them, both physically and as personality-wise. The sex scenes are nicely done: the author seems to show that sex (not so much panicked and desperate coupling, but sensual intimacy) can sustain you, no matter how difficult the world you live in. What Love Can't Do shows the effect of environmental oblivious in "the early years" (the era we live in now), when people could have made a difference. No wonder the movie option got grabbed up -- I think it would make a fine movie.

Love and Hope

I loved this book! From the very first sentences I found myself caught up, breath held, in the beautiful, intelligent writing. The characters are very real and whole, and the stories frightening and at times sad, but also very moving and written, I felt, from a place of love and hope for humanity.

This was originally published [...]. Check it out!

The title of What Love Can't Do, a new novel by Kitty Beer, sounds like a bodice ripper, but it's not. Well, there is plenty of bodice ripping going on, but that's not exactly the point. Love portrays the chaotic aftereffects of global warming and examines how people manage not just to survive, but also to keep their humanity, passion, and families intact. The novel, which starts in the mid-21st century, dunks the reader head-first as if into ice-water into a world--which used to be our world--where every day is a Mad Max battle for survival. Remember the unusually mild winter or the extraordinary number of hurricanes that coursed through this past season? Beer does. In Love, what started as a series of freak storms or weather anomalies, minor flukes in the weather patterns that warranted no more concern than a sound bite on the six o'clock news, have continued, growing in intensity and frequency as the earth seemingly convulses and heaves from the long-term effect of the toxins and pollutants that have nonchalantly been let loose on the environment. Her book isn't a polemic on the politics; she's not making judgments or pronouncements. She's taking it as a forgone fact. Her interest instead lies in the human element, the effect of these disasters on society. Beer paints a picture of a society forced to come to terms with the increasing calamities. Once the United States government shuts down, a disorderly sort of order follows in its wake. As the weather damage creeps north and the survivors migrate to safer climes, those already in the north (natives or previous refugees) seek to preserve what little they have for the short time they have it. Canada's government is able to stay more-or-less in one piece, but only by shutting down the border and effecting oppressive controls against its own people and taking even more extreme measures against refugees from the US. In both Canada and the US, to fill the void in government control, others step in: mercenaries, ad hoc local leaders, revolutionaries, and a chilling new religious order. Jesus is coming, and, boy is he pissed. This isn't the all-forgiving savior of Christian mythology, who died on the cross for our sins. This Jesus is going to stick around for a long, long time--if he ever gets here--and mercilessly punish those who don't believe. For, according to the tenets of Zorianism, the calamity was not caused by corporations and excessive consumption, but by a lack of faith. In addition to being split between those few who control the limited resources and those who must fend without, society is rapidly being split between the believers and the non-believers. Beer shows us the future through the eyes and hearts of three generations of women: Tati, her daughter, Crea, and her granddaughter, Fair, who each see the changing world from a different perspective. Tati, the matriarch of the family, remembers the old days the best and mourns their loss the most. These women