The Sky is Yours Is a Marvel of Post-Apocalyptic Satire

Former reality TV star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V is heir to a vast fortune, selfishly concerned only with how he looks to his fans. The Baroness Swan “Swanny” Lenore Dahlberg is a queen-sized beauty whose businessminded mother has negotiated her into marriage with Duncan in order to secure wealth to title. And Abby is a mysterious lost orphan, stranded on an island of trash with no human contact since her guardian’s death. All of these characters inhabit the social strata of Empire City, a burned out husk of a once great metropolis. Its streets are all but abandoned, covered in grime and plagued with violence, and provide an astonishing backdrop to the stories of these three young people navigating a world beset by all the usual human concerns—and those two dragons endlessly circling the sky, one green, one yellow, and the source of the seemingly random fires that brought the city to ruin.
Ripple is not known for his brains. He takes the family’s flying vehicle, known as a HowFly, for a spin to shake off his nerves before his first meeting with his betrothed, but flies too close to a dragon and is knocked out of the sky. He crashes onto Abby’s island of trash, floating just offshore of Empire City, and meets this very strange girl. Abby is very different from every other girl he’s ever known. For one thing, she’s naked, and for another, she talks to animals. And somehow, she likes him, despite not knowing who he is. Abby is delighted to finally have a companion on her island, though as much as Ripple seems to enjoy his lost boy status, he’s relieved when his Uncle Osmond tracks him down and rescues him. His rash decision to take Abby with them will change both of their lives forever.
Swanny Dahlberg travels with her own dentist. She has inexplicably never stopped growing new teeth and requires regular extractions. She imagines a dream life with her new fiancé, but her illusions are shattered when she finds him in bed with Abby. Still, the contracts have already been signed by their financially minded parents, and the show must go on. The politicking and maneuvering of these two powerful families serve as a sharp rebuke of the absurdities of our own wealthy elites; as comedic exaggerations of the megarich, they’re equally funny and horrifying. Ripples’ parents are a billionaire and his foreign model wife, which might remind you of one particularly powerful modern day figure, but this is not the elder generation’s story. This is a story about the children of a broken world, those who have never known a world without dragons in the sky, finding themselves and searching for redemption. When a home invasion disrupts the path of all of their lives, Ripple, Abby and Swanny find themselves on a perilous journey, a sort of quasi-fantasy coming-of-age quest that’s as much about figuring out their own futures as anything else.
In the end, I’m not sure they find what they are looking for, nor do they necessarily grow much along the way. Abby’s journey is the most satisfying (though rooting for the underdog is always easiest), and while Swanny does end up with more backbone and moxie, I wanted more for her then what she gets in the end—she has the makings of a leader, and none of the willpower to do anything about it. As for Ripple, I’m not sure we’re meant to like him—it’s tough to find empathy for such an empty person, but even he might eventually find it within himself to consider others first. As the saying goes, though, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Whether Ripple, Swanny, and Abby learn a little or a lot about themselves, whether they change much along the way or not, their journey to get there is really what matters—the failures and successes along the way are what make a life.
The Sky Is Yours describes a strange and gritty landscape, and I wonder what else is out there beyond this ruined city. It is a wholly immersive world, and the characters provide an often uncomfortable ride through it all—it’s a riveting read, but not an easy one, content to leave its mysteries unexplained. We wonder, alongside the characters, just what the dragons are. Where did they come from? Why are they haunting this city? And why do people stay there? The prose is self-aware, and occasionally cut with sarcasm, but shows heart, too, and great affection for the inhabitants of this strange place. The scope of the city is immense: the island of garbage; the ever-burning slum of Torchtown, swarming with weird drugs, prostitutes, and generations of criminals walled in to their own economy. (There’s even an alligator chained to a fire hydrant.) It’s over the top in the best way—an ambitious, unsettling book, worth the trip.
The Sky Is Yours is available now.