A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.

In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence-until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down if something can be imagined, it is possible. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle-but nonetheless world-changing-invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. (Jan.The Seep A blend of searing social commentary and speculative fiction, Chana Porter’s fresh, pointed debut is perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer and Carmen Maria Machado. Agent: Sarah Bolling, The Gernert Company. Readers will delight in the eerie disquietude and optimism of this well-calibrated what-if. Porter employs profound compassion and gentle humor to convey Trina’s fear of change and distrust of complacency. 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. 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. 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. The Seep is a daring paean to human vulnerability and a bold speculative inquest into what makes life worth living. 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 by Chana Porter