The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos

The descendants of Arctic homesteaders cope with climate change and discover a strange new livelihood in Shaw’s inventive debut. In an alternate present, the Spahr family lives in a “salmon-colored fisherman’s shack built on deep stilts” in the middle of a fjord, accessible only by boat or floatplane. The mother, Viola, supports the family as a charter pilot, raising three children with her farmer husband, Fry. Viola dies just as visitors begin arriving to hunt for pianos brought to the fjord by early settlers, which are now underwater, and are worth a great deal of money. Her daughter, Milda, who has long dreamed of moving south for school, becomes wrapped up in the piano hunting, and teams up with her brother Finley, a committed piano hunter who dives with the aid of a submersible that resembles a jet ski, to locate a piano brought there by their ancestor Moose Bloomer. The search is complicated by rising sea levels, and by the siblings’ uneasy relationship with the Huntmoon family, pastors of a local church. Shaw weaves memorable folkloric elements such as pet sea lions and a piano that is 18 feet tall with a resonant story of a people contending with a vanishing way of life. It’s a singular tale of human perseverance. Agent: Janet Silver, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)