Vancouver author's debut suspense novel tackles identity, climate change and dangerous secrets - Action News
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British Columbia

Vancouver author's debut suspense novel tackles identity, climate change and dangerous secrets

Vancouver author and sustainability specialist Lisa Brideau has just released her first novel, centred around a character called Ess.

Lisa Brideaus Adrift takes place on B.C.'s coast, including Haida Gwaii and Nanaimo

A composite photo of a book cover featuring the ocean and the book's author, a woman in a white dress shirt with a crisp brunette bob.
Adrift is a book by Lisa Brideau. (Sourcebooks, J. Josue Photography)

The year is 2038. Ess wakes up alone on a sailboat off the coast of Haida Gwaii with no memory of who she is or how she got there.

That's the opening scene for Lisa Briedeau's debut novel, Adrift, which was releasedMay 9.

The novel follows Ess as she figures out who she is, what happened to her and what the state of the world is. Hint,things aren't looking great: dangerous storms and thousands of climate change refugees have become the norm.

Through Ess's amnesia, Brideau explores how much of our identity comes from connections and memories built up over time, and how we function without those things.

She chose to set the book in coastal B.C., on and around the ocean, because it's an environment she knows well.

"I've always been by the ocean. I grew up on the East Coast, in Nova Scotia and then moved out here," she said.

"There's something about being at the edge of the world and that way it makes you kind of contemplate the world."

Climate change

While writing is a passion forBrideaushe also works full-time as a sustainability specialist for the City of Vancouver, where she implements programs to make the city greener.

The book combines her interest in speculative fiction with her desire to educate others about the consequences of climate change.

"You can't write about the future anymore without [climate change]," she told North by Northwest host Margaret Gallagher.

"You can't even really write about the present anymore without grappling with it because it's here. It's impacting us."

A flooded street is pictured with sandbags along one side.
Flooding, pictured here in Cache Creek, B.C., in May 2023, is one of the many consequences B.C. and other parts of the world are facing as a result of climate change. (Marcella Bernardo/CBC)

Brideau said she was working on revisions to the novel in 2021when climate change became increasingly obvious in B.C. Floods, wildfires and a heat domedevastated several areas and killed residents.

As the book wasreleased, B.C. and neighbouring Alberta wereset to seeunseasonably hot temperatures,while already facing wildfires and flooding simultaneously.

An aerial shot of a massive plume of smoke rising from forest-covered hills.
Wildfires in provinces like B.C. are becoming more common and severe due to the affects of climate change. (B.C. Wildfire Service)

Despite this, Brideau says she remains hopeful about the response to climate change.

"I get to work in a place that's trying to move things forward and trying to advance things," she said.

"We kind of have to focus on doing what we're doing and doing it to the best that we can."

Brideau said she feels the book is a hopeful outlook on the climate crisis, too.

"It's got Canada that'sentirely on renewable energy for our electricity grid, it's got places that have adapted to sea level rise."

It's also realistic about how the world could look 15 years from now.

"The reality is that even if we stop all carbon emissions today, the impacts are going to roll out and the places that are most vulnerable are going to feel the impacts regardless."

With files from North by Northwest