Day 92: Tilt by Emma Pattee

Tilt by Emma Pattee is the story of a 37 week pregnant Annie who lives through an earthquake while shopping for a crib in Portland, Oregon. The book alternates between graphic descriptions of the carnage the event has unleashed on the city’s residents and Annie’s memories of significant events in her past. Personally, I thought the memory chapters were filled with heart and the best part of the book; the earthquake chapters were deadly serious and devoid of any sense of humor. At times I was reminded of an essay Mark Leyner once wrote about sports where he asked if the television audience would keep watching if they took away the ball; I would have read Pattee’s book if there was no earthquake. One could easily imagine the story where the story alternates between memories of past events and childbirth.

In some ways, Pattee’s book is something of a throwback to the thrillers people used to buy at the grocery store or the drugstore in the 1970s like Jaws or the Exorcist. But, as I finished the book, I felt like the real tragedy that Annie was powerless to avoid was not the earthquake, but the financial and economic challenges related to the shortage of affordable housing and the difficulty she and her husband had finding reliable and good paying work in theater. At least for me, the scariest part of Tilt was not the violent acts Annie was involved in after the earthquake, but the conversation she and her husband Dom had after he left the dentist office with a treatment plan for two root canals and no dental insurance.

There are more than a few it happens in a single day novellas like Nicholson Baker’s Mezzanine or Saul Bellow’s Seize the day with similar structures to Pattee’s Tilt. Those books are 135 and 114 pages, respectively; I do think Tilt would have been a better book if it were 50 pages shorter. Honestly, I thought I would like this book more than I actually did.

One final word, I do think the cover on the hardback I checked out from the library is awesome. Love that bird.

May 23, 2025. kindle borrowed from Libby and libro.fm audiobook. 229 pgs.