"I

t’s a small memory in the end, as all your memories seem now”—so ruminates the unnamed protagonist (referred to throughout the text and in this review as “you”) in Em J Parsley’s speculative novella You, From Below. The story begins in the quiet aftermath of disaster. An Appalachian holler town has been swallowed by the earth. The town’s sole survivor (or, so it seems) carries a mysterious letter in their pocket, knowing intuitively they must deliver it– somewhere, to someone (or something). Along the journey, “you” encounters mythical figures (a possibly immortal woman, a woman left behind by a rapture in her town, a faceless beekeeper), each as alone and lonely as the unnamed protagonist.

That the story begins in the aftermath of the disaster, rather than with the disaster itself, sets a somber and unsettlingly calm tone. The solitary journey of the protagonist reads as a mythological hero's journey through what might be an afterlife; or, perhaps, something that the reader would prefer to think of as an afterlife to avoid the unsettling notion that this world is, in fact, our own.

Reading about a disappeared town in Appalachia immediately called to mind the devastating images of Hurricane Helene from last autumn. In this way, You, From Below accomplishes what I enjoy most about speculative fiction and magical realism: using surrealistic imagery and storytelling to expose the strange, unjust, and (in this case) horrific truths of our own world. Having grown up in Louisiana, a place full of wildness, poverty, and particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the uncanny descriptions in You, From Below resonated with me deeply. Sometimes you have to tap into the realm of the unreal to accurately portray such places.

As the protagonist recalls people from her now disappeared town (a former partner, a friend from high school, their mother, a gas station employee), I couldn’t help but think of the people and livelihoods lost during Hurricane Helene. This is what I love most about You, From Below and what I found the most moving– the people’s lives that the protagonist recalls throughout the book, memories that they themselves call “small”, are elevated to the status of myth– they are worthy of being committed to a kind of immortality through story.

Near the end of the novella, “you” recalls a conversation with their mother in which the mother asks what they would like to do, if they could do anything. “You” responds that they would like to watch the town and its people from a nearby hill. You, From Below understands that who and where gets remembered is political and deeply connected to socioeconomic factors. Without giving away the novella’s poignant end, I will say that the reader is left with the profound sense that we are inextricably connected to the people in our community and to the physical place itself. These people and these places, especially the ones most vulnerable to natural disasters, climate change, and harsh socioeconomic realities, deserve our attention.