Being a mother is hard under the best of circumstances — now imagine caring for a toddler alone in the forest during an apocalypse set off by extreme flooding.
That’s the arduous task Liv Vela takes on as she tries to survive in the wilderness of a futuristic United States with her 3-year-old son Milo in the novel “Dry Lands” by Philadelphia-based author Elizabeth Anne Martins.
The climate-fiction tale follows a mother-and-son duo through the trials of their journey as they flee the East Coast, which has become submerged by water, in search of dry land and safety in Tennessee, where an extended family member lives.
“Dry Lands,” which came out in May, was recently chosen as a 2024 pick for Great Group Reads by the Women’s National Book Association.
Martins began writing the novel in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, she saw conspiracy theories gain traction online, including one that attributes catastrophic flooding, extinctions and other climate events to the Earth’s shifting magnetic fields (which scientists say has no merit).
She borrowed this idea for the basis of her book, she says, adding that the reality of rising sea levels caused by climate change is “an important issue.” Martins refers to the fictional flooding event as “the Shift” throughout the novel.
In addition to the risks posed by extreme weather and wild animals, Martins raises the stakes in the novel with threats of cannibalistic gangs searching for their next meal and corrupt patrollers looking for prisoners to take to their inhumane encampments.
“Dry Lands” includes the guns and action scenes one would expect in a dystopian, apocalyptic book or film, but Martins also includes the everyday work mothers do, such as changing diapers and breastfeeding, which she says sometimes can be “more of a challenge than shooting off the bad guy.”
“In the same way that Tom Cruise in ‘Mission: Impossible’ is a superhero, I wanted a lactating mom to be a superhero also,” she adds.
Martins says the novel is “loosely” based on her own life as a mother. When she began writing the story, her own son was the same age as Milo.
“Certain things like potty training or getting your kid to eat or not having enough resources or not having a safety net or your group — that’s based on true events,” she says.
Martins, who works a day job in the publishing industry, says she began imagining the story during the isolation of the pandemic as the world was shutting down. As a result, she and her son spent many days outside, walking and playing in the woods of Wissahickon Valley Park and Awbury Arboretum in Germantown.
“I was just imagining this world as the two of us were walking, ‘What if we did live outside? What if we really couldn’t get to the grocery store?’” she says.
Martins was also thinking about how difficult parenting and caretaking can be, particularly when that work is undervalued by society, she says. “I just wanted to put a spotlight on that.”
Martins’ next book, a thriller called “Opposite World,” is set to come out September 2025.
