By Caren Gussoff Sumption
FROM: Locus Magazine

There’s no way to overstate our obsession with immortality. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Marvel’s Eternals, humans have always dreamt of living forever, and speculated on what it would be like to do so. And with so many examples in existence, it’s difficult to present readers with a fresh take on the sempiternal trope, but Natashia Deon’s second novel, The Perishing, does exactly that.

Deon’s immortal, Lou, is unusual. She’s young, Black, somewhat naive, and utterly brilliant. She also remembers almost nothing of who, or what, she is. Lou awakens, a 16-year-old girl, nude in an alleyway of 1930s Los Angeles. She has no possessions, no identification, and no idea how she got there. We know slightly more than she does – when we meet Lou, we’re already a chapter into the book, and have encountered Sarah, a woman 170 years in the future, and Charlie, a young man predating Lou by 30 years, who have something to do with Lou – but we don’t know much. There is a larger, mysterious context around Lou’s appearance in this time and place, and we learn more as Lou does. Sarah, who is on trial for murder, and is the second most consistent voice in The Perishing, does drop the tidbit that she is Lou, many lives hence, and that the dreams, visions, and flashes of deja vu Lou experiences are her memories, both past and future. Overall, we are in as big a fog as Lou about how this all works, and why she is there, accompanying her as she builds a life amongst the civil and financial unrest of early 20th-century California. Read Rest of Review Here