“A unique alien invasion story that focuses on the human and the myriad ways we see and don’t see our own world. Mesmerizing.”
—Jeff VanderMeer

A blend of searing social commentary and speculative fiction, Chana Porter’s fresh, pointed debut explores a strange new world in the wake of a benign alien invasion.

Trina FastHorse 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. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

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. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. 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. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.

© 2020 by Chana Porter. ℗ 2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Excerpt from “My Play” in Sherwood Forest by Camille Roy. © 2011 by Camille Roy. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Futurepoem Books, www.futurepoem.com. All rights reserved. Excerpt from Architectural Body by Madeline Gins and Arakawa. © 2002 by Madeline Gins and Shusaku Arakawa. Reprinted by permission of The University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. Excerpt from “You are not dead” in Black Life by Dorothea Lasky. © 2010 by Dorothea Lasky. Reprinted with the permission of Wave Books, wavepoetry.com. All rights reserved.