Welcome to the primary ever Seattle Met guide membership. On Might 20, we’ll be sitting down with writer Thomas Kohnstamm on the College E book Retailer to debate his latest novel, Supersonic. Within the weeks to return, we’ll be sharing perception from Kohnstamm on the guide—which is offered at native shops— and associated tales from the Seattle Met archives.
When the top of the Stevenson Elementary PTA proposed to rename the constructing in honor of its Japanese American heritage, she anticipated some resistance—however not on the degree of the district shuttering the college altogether. Finances cuts. Declining enrollment. One other Seattle establishment was on the chopping block. As an alternative of backing down, Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth and her ragtag PTA crew fought to rewrite the historical past of the college slightly than let it’s erased.
Whereas that could possibly be a information story from current months, it’s truly a fictional storyline from of my new novel, Supersonic (revealed this yr however written between 2020 and 2024). I by no means supposed any ripped-from-the headlines plotting within the guide. I used to be trying to put in writing an up to date, wide-lensed creation delusion for our metropolis: one about hustlers and dreamers, about how this place is constructed on waves of hypothesis, disappointment, reinvention, and dogged optimism. However, in writing a novel based mostly on that cyclical nature of town’s booms and busts, the story ended up inadvertently forecasting a couple of of our newest challenges.
I structured the guide round 4 historic durations of upheaval:
- 1890s – The Yukon Gold Rush, when town bought itself because the singular portal to unimaginable wealth—irrespective of that the gold was truly hundreds of miles away in Northern Canada.
- Nineteen Fifties – Peak Jet Age, once we satisfied ourselves that the unimpeded rise of American know-how was nearly to engineer the top of historical past.
- Seventies – The Boeing Bust, when the tide swept out, and Seattle was caught standing there, stark bare and shivering.
- 2010s – Amazon Achieves Liftoff (+ Authorized Weed), when unimaginable wealth lastly arrived, together with a bunch of unanticipated kicks to the groin.
The Supersonic title of the guide comes not from the basketball crew, however from the Boeing supersonic transport (SST) that serves because the central metaphor for the story. The SST was supposed to vary our relationship with time and house (it will have flown from Seattle to Tokyo within the period of time it at present takes to fly to Dallas) however by no means made a single flight and was by no means even constructed. In these days, Seattle was the largest firm city in America and the SST’s cancellation cratered the native economic system for a era. Nonetheless, many argue that the engineering tradition constructed across the SST laid the groundwork for the rise of Seattle’s later tech business.
Native Books
Seattle Met E book Membership
Might 20, 5pm at College E book Retailer
Be a part of the Seattle Met guide membership in individual for a dialog with writer Thomas Kohnstamm.
In the end, Supersonic is about reaching excessive, falling in your face, and never at all times getting what you need—however sometimes discovering what you want. Seattle’s cycle of ambition and setback has, occasionally, rewarded us with transformative successes in restyling espresso, working methods, and e-commerce. But, these cycles have additionally inevitably included their share of face-plants.
Not one of the guide’s numerous storylines had been deliberate predictions about Seattle’s close to future. Reasonably, writing Supersonic taught me that this narrative is solely what emerges whenever you look at Seattle’s historical past and illustrate its repeating patterns. If the guide feels eerily related, maybe it’s as a result of Seattle retains revisiting its earlier challenges—every time amplified by new know-how and sooner media cycles.
If historical past is any information, we’re at present experiencing one other second alongside the cresting waves and deep troughs of our metropolis’s ongoing story. Hopefully, the following time the tide recedes, we’ll a minimum of keep in mind our bathing fits.
Over the following few weeks, I’ll be again right here at Seattle Met to debate extra related themes from the guide. Keep tuned.
