The Seep

Starred review from November 1, 2019

DEBUT Aliens have come to Earth and brought about an era of contentment and bliss. The Seep has connected everything, and the world as it once was no longer exists. Still, some do hold onto pieces of themselves as autonomous, free-willed beings, including Trina Goldberg-Oneka, an American Indian trans woman. While Seep-tech has expanded Trina's career as a doctor, she sees the effects that living fully in the Seep had on those around her. Now her wife, Deeba, has chosen a restart of her life, being reborn as a baby. Consumed with grief and anger, Trina wallows emotionally and physically until a chance encounter with a young boy untouched by the Seep sets her on a journey that will cause her to face her past, her emotions, and everything the Seep has given and taken from humanity. VERDICT This surreal debut takes on themes of utopia, identity, love, and loss, while readers are pulled into a full experience through Porter's fluid prose. This unusual story will linger long past the last page.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 18, 2019
In Porter’s surreal, introspective debut, a benevolent alien invasion leads humanity into a utopia, exploring themes of grief and discontentment within a seemingly perfect world. The Seep, a well-meaning, symbiotic alien entity, causes hierarchies to breakdown, enhances technology beyond humankind’s wildest dreams, and functions as a mind-expanding drug that eliminates human mortality and grants people the power to transform their appearance at will. When Trina Goldberg-Oneka’s wife Deeba decides to reexperience her life from babyhood, Trina, a 50-year-old trans woman who remains suspicious of the changes wrought by the Seep, refuses to transition from the role of wife to mother, ending their relationship. Trina shakes her subsequent alcoholic depression just long enough to take on a “vengeful quest” to confront a former friend whom she fought with years before over identity politics, and to save a lost boy from the effects of the Seep. Porter employs profound compassion and gentle humor to convey Trina’s fear of change and distrust of complacency. Readers will delight in the eerie disquietude and optimism of this well-calibrated what-if. Agent: Sarah Bolling, The Gernert Company.

Starred review from December 15, 2019
Porter's first novel opens with a young couple hosting a lavish dinner party amidst an announced alien invasion. The alien entity and its connected cosmic network are collectively called the Seep. Unlike the terror one might imagine from an extraterrestrial encroachment, the Seep creates the opposite, Utopia. When humans come into contact with the Seep?the effects of which mimic the sensation of being drugged?they experience benevolence and serenity. Many decades of this feel-good sensibility create a perfect world devoid of war, famine, illness, and even fear of death. Humans, unencumbered by the drudgery of life, become free to explore any passion or idiosyncrasy. People have the power to modify themselves to truly reflect what they desire; they can sprout horns, grow wings, or even start over and literally become a baby. Trina, a transgender woman, seems to be the only exception to this unfettered freedom and contentment as she mourns the decision of her wife, Deeba, to regress back to infancy. When a fateful encounter with an old friend pushes Trina to her breaking point, she decides to escape the clutches of the Seep. Porter's gripping, subtly hopeful work of literary speculative fiction is shaped by remarkable world-building elements and acute observation of human frailties and impetus.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)