I’m sure I can’t tell you why I find myself thinking about the novel, Snowflake: A Novel, by Arthur Jeon, a novel that fits within the odd category of “climate fiction.” I wrote a review of this book back in February last year, back in that retrospective golden time of apparent climate change progress. The work takes place during Trump’s first term, although today it can be read as Trump’s second term, since the over-arching storyline is of a young man’s anxiety about Trump’s counterfactual resistance to climate change progress, and worse, Trump’s eager push for fossil fuels and against renewables. The story is about a high school senior, a neuro-divergent male, who dedicates his life to killing Trump. This is a masterfully written novel and an ambitious one too, but go figure why I’m thinking about a book read a year ago, right? The killing of a United Healthcare CEO several weeks ago and the visceral frisson the event produced among so many can’t be, I’m sure, why I’m thinking about Snowflake again.

The book will both ramp up one’s climate change fears and in offering a “culture-divergent” perspective, provide some solace, too. The book is no prescription for our troubled times, but it is a fine work of literature that in itself can serve as salve to our fears and worries.