Finding Our Shared Humanity in Allegra Hyde’s The Last Catastrophe

Henry David Thoreau once said, “Not until we’re lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” This same sentiment speaks to the heart of Allegra Hyde’s short story collection, The Last Catastrophe, an assemblage of fifteen speculative stories that creatively consider the consequences of a not-too-distant future that at times feels so resonant and eerily familiar one might say we’re already there–much like the goods preemptively shipped by the Algorithm introduced in Hyde’s 2024 Pushcart Prize-winning story “The Future Is a Click Away,” which arrive before one can fully comprehend or realize their necessity.

The characters occupying The Last Catastrophe face similar challenges to those populating our daily newsfeeds–a global climate crisis, extinction of species from our planet, new technologies as well as our addiction to them, questionable politics, rampant consumerism–just to name a few. Hyde is no stranger when it comes to writing about the effects of climate change. Both her novel, Eleutheria, and her short story collection, Of This New World, explore similar themes and feature moments of “global weirding” or the belief climate change will intensify weather-related extremes over time if left unchecked. At first glance, the apocalyptic premises of this collection may come across as a tad heavy or depressing. However, Hyde approaches them with such a deft blend of humor and compassion, their capacity to produce moments of hope and resiliency also shines through. As the particle scientist in the story “Afterglow” points out early on in the collection, there’s great beauty in observing the paradox of how something can be both bad and good at the same time.

The opening story “Mobilization,” which first appeared in Story Issue 16 (Spring 2023) and won an O. Henry Prize in 2024, sets the swift pace of The Last Catastrophe not only with immediacy and urgency but also its collective voice–“We were multitudes, we were millions.” As readers, we’re immediately immersed alongside the members of this sprawling caravan of motorhomes as they attempt to flee a frenzied world propelled (and later buried) by the weight of their own consumption. The message here certainly hits its mark, but it’s the collective voice that echoes long after the story is finished–“We wait–to be called up, summoned–to burst to the surface, burn into motion. We are ready.”–a subtle but shrewd reminder we’re all in this together, that our responsibility to care for this planet and one another is both vital and non-discriminatory.

At the same time, The Last Catastrophe doesn’t inundate the reader with a lot of technical jargon or long lists of facts as some climate fiction or essays tend to do. Rather, Hyde does the research for us and seamlessly folds those details into the background so the dynamics as well as the connection between the character and reader remain immersive in an effort to build trust and resonance. The professor in the novella, “The Eaters,” found at the end of the collection, reminds us “to see the last of something–be it a zoo-kept koala or a human community–is a privilege. A horrific privilege, but a privilege nonetheless.” The Last Catastrophe invites us to imagine a future built upon unnecessary losses and calls into question the fragility of our humanity as we witness these characters grapple with overwhelming odds both as individuals and members of a community in peril. Partners, parents, children, adolescents, elders, friends, lovers–these characters show us how even in the most catastrophic circumstances we remain our unique, flawed human selves to the very end.

Hyde also employs dark humor and satire, much like postmodernist writers Donald Barthelme and Margaret Atwood, to highlight the absurdities of a contemporary world as it careens toward an uncertain, if not frightening, future. For instance, “Democracy in America,” also included in The Best American Short Stories 2024 anthology, features Alexis de Tocqueville visiting a version of America where body-switching technologies allow poor, young women to consign and sell their youthfulness to the rich elderly. Also, as a symbol of unity, the president proposes the Great Lakes be bulldozed to create One Big Lake so America is “not just home to Great Lakes, but the Greatest Lake.” Likewise, in “Endangered,” artists are kept in cages by the government because they don’t possess the skills to survive–they don’t know how to shoot guns. Although many of these scenarios appear humorous or absurd on the surface, there is just enough implied reality mixed in to again make us turn our gaze toward the funhouse mirror of our own conscience.

In “The Tough Part,” a bickering couple is encouraged by their four-year-old daughter, Dottie, to pull themselves together to save the last five moose on the planet. They each don one-half of an uncomfortable moose costume as they attempt to lure the moose away from their suburban neighborhood toward the Canadian wilderness where they can roam free and procreate.  As expected, it’s a tenuous journey full of obstacles and recriminations. The narrator repeatedly tells us “the tough part is continuing on.” And yet, this couple endures because they wish to show their daughter they “care enough to keep a species continuing on.”

Hyde dedicates The Last Catastrophe “For who we’ll be–” How we navigate the future depends so much on how we choose to live through adversity, whether those burdens are self-created or handed down to us by prior generations. Hyde encourages us not to give up, to keep trying. For that possibility, we must be grateful.

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A Conversation With Allegra Hyde

 

Reviews Editor Kristin Tenor had the pleasure of communicating with Allegra Hyde via email to discuss the inspiration and craft behind her short story collection, The Last Catastrophe.

INTERVIEWER

The fifteen stories included in The Last Catastrophe have been described as exploring “a myriad of potential futures through the concept of ‘global weirding,’ planetary and social disruptions due to climate change.” Your novel, Eleutheria, as well as your short story collection, Of This New World, also highlights a similar climate awareness. What particular events and/or influences first sparked this curiosity in you?

ALLEGRA HYDE

I grew up in the New Hampshire woods surrounded by trees and bears and birds and moss. This made the natural world feel very present. And since there wasn’t a whole lot to do in that area, I spent a lot of time poking around the woods, getting to know the local ecosystem.

There was also a strong environmental ethos in my family and in my hometown community. For instance, we had a town recycling center where you had to carefully sort your recyclables at little stations. There were lots of rules—like no leaving bottle caps on milk jugs—that were annoying but also important. A recycling facility like that makes you get really intimate with what you’re throwing away. It also makes the trash disposal process public and social. That’s important too! You were all but guaranteed to run into your neighbors and fellow townspeople while sorting your bits of cardboard. For this reason, the idea of social responsibility around environmental issues has been a normal part of my life for as long as I can remember.

INTERVIEWER

The first-person plural point of view in the opening story, “Mobilization,” creates an immediate sense of urgency and community—that good, bad, or ugly we’re all in this together. Did this collective voice speak to you early on or coalesce over time?

HYDE

I started experimenting with first-person plural about a decade ago. I’d read Julia Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic and was blown away by the storytelling possibilities it revealed for collective perspectives. It felt freeing to write in the voice of a group, rather than always being restricted to the POV of one individual. It also felt true to life. As human beings, we are participants in groups, communities, cultures; we have collective experiences alongside our individual ones. When I began developing The Last Catastrophe in earnest, I kept returning to collective perspectives in my stories because I was writing about collective circumstances. Escalating greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, are not the result of a single individual’s actions. They are the product of many million decisions made collectively. This is an essential reality to capture in fiction because it’s a reality that can sometimes be hard to fully grasp about climate change—that no one is responsible and yet we’re all responsible. Likewise, no single person can solve this situation, and yet collectively we have the power to make massive changes.

INTERVIEWER

In your short story, “Zoo Suicides,” you credit the great postmodernist writer Donald Barthelme. His work as well as your own relies on dark humor and/or the surreal to draw attention to the serious challenges we face not only as individuals but also as members of a global community in crisis. Does levity make it easier to approach the reader with such a critical message? How does one strike the right balance?

HYDE

Yes, levity absolutely makes it easier to engage with difficult material. Humor greases the wheels. It can get a reader to let their guard down. For me, as an author and a human being, humor is also a coping mechanism. The world is so often absurd—absurdly violent, absurdly foolish, absurdly unfair—and sometimes I find the only way to keep moving is to find ways to laugh at that absurdity. To let in a little light.

As for finding the right balance between humor and a critical message, I think that’s a process of trial and error. I’m lucky to have some trusted early readers who help me calibrate material. And reading material aloud to an audience is a surefire way to find out if people authentically laugh.

INTERVIEWER

Quite a few characters in The Last Catastrophe are children or adolescents; and, in some cases, end up being the ones brave enough to take action when others fail to do so, such as sixteen-year-old Marmalade in “The Eaters” leaving the safety of the compound to search for her brother, even though the Eaters remain a threat to her community’s existence. Do you feel our youth are better equipped to care for our planet than their predecessors? If so, why?

HYDE

Children and young people tend to have less bullshit compromising their sense of justice. For grown-ups, the challenges of paying bills and keeping up with the Joneses can make issues of right and wrong a little murky. But youth—teenagers especially—are hard-wired to question their elders’ ways of doing things. I think that’s good! I have taken a lot of inspiration over the years from youth activists, such as those involved with the Sunrise Movement or Fridays for the Future. For young people, there is also simply more at stake. The future is their future. A society on a crash course toward planetary ruin is a society that is not looking out for the long-term interests of its youth. Ultimately, I’m not sure if youth are better equipped to care for our planet so much as they are more likely to be invested.

INTERVIEWER

Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Do you agree?

HYDE

I’ve noticed over the past decade or so that conversations about preventing catastrophic climate change have shifted more toward conversations about “climate resilience.” In other words, I think even the most diehard environmentalists are being realistic about the inevitable, and devastating impact of climate change. They are thinking about how to adapt to a rapidly changing world, while also continuing to fight against worst-case outcomes. Adaptation will certainly be essential in the future. Will people who survive a potentially apocalyptic future be those who’ve adapted best? Maybe. I also think survivors will be those who are lucky. And isn’t chance and randomness part of Darwin’s theorizing as well?

INTERVIEWER

In “Afterglow,” the particle scientist says, “That beauty […], the paradox of that beauty—that’s what I’m obsessed with. How something can be bad and good at the same time.” Can you describe a moment of paradoxical beauty that has stayed with you? How has it changed your overall perspective about the future?

HYDE

Paradoxical beauty became a touchstone during my research into “global weirding.” For instance, some coral reefs will turn stunning neon colors because polyps have generated special pigments to protect themselves from intensifying sunlight. Or, as I wrote about in “Afterglow,” sunsets can become extra vivid due to pollution in the air. Just recently, in my own life, I experienced several absolutely gorgeous 80-degree October days in Massachusetts. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the birds were singing—which was lovely, really lovely to experience—but such weather was also a horrifying manifestation of climate change. October in Massachusetts shouldn’t be so warm, just as coral reefs shouldn’t be turning neon pink, or sunsets artificially red. I try to pay attention to these moments of beauty, though, because I think it’s important to bring a sense of curiosity—and even wonder—to times of crisis. We can’t persist on feelings of grief and anger alone.

INTERVIEWER

Hurricanes, wildfires burning out of control, oceans with record high temperatures, glaciers disappearing, AI technology looming, divisive political tensions, wars, the constant threat of violence at home and abroad—it’s sometimes difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the magnanimity of it all. In “The Tough Part,” the narrator repeats at the end, “The tough part is continuing on.” Any advice, especially for writers or artists, on how to remain engaged and inspired during such unsettling times?

HYDE

It is all overwhelming! And unsettling! But writers and artists are more powerful than we sometimes realize. There’s a reason oppressive political forces often try to silence people engaged with the arts. The arts offer opportunities for a society to understand itself more fully, to see itself more truly, and—perhaps most importantly—to believe in new possibilities. The arts can help rattle us free of old realities and point us toward new ones. The key, I think, is not expecting such a process to be direct or even particularly visible. A degree of faith is involved. But look at the visual art, the literature, the music that inspires people now—some of it is very old. Sometimes change takes a long time. Making art and putting it out into the world may mean planting a seed for a future generation. For me, believing in the future helps me stay connected to art-making in the present.

INTERVIEWER

What do you hope will ultimately save this world from catastrophe in the end?

HYDE

It sounds a little sappy, but my answer is love. Human beings are capable of so much cruelty and greed and selfishness, but we’re also capable of tremendous love. We have the capacity to show up for one another, to take care of one another—and sometimes we do. I think we still can. I think we will.

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Allegra Hyde is the author of the story collection The Last Catastrophe, an Editors’ Choice selection at The New York Times and a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award. Her debut novel Eleutheria was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker, shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, and featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Her first story collection, Of This New World, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Hyde has also received four Pushcart Prizes and the O. Henry Prize. Her work has been selected for anthologies including The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Travel Writing, and Best of the Net. She has received fellowships and grants from the MacDowell Artist Residency, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Smith College.