Awake in the Floating City Summary, Characters and Themes

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan is a quietly powerful novel set in a city overtaken by relentless rain and flooding, where the remnants of civilization struggle to survive amid rising waters and crumbling infrastructure.  The story follows Bo, a once-aspiring artist turned caregiver, who remains in her slowly drowning city while many others have fled.

Haunted by personal loss and the weight of an uncertain future, Bo’s life is defined by isolation, routine, and the unsteady connections she forms with neighbors, especially Mia, an elderly woman she cares for.  The book explores themes of resilience, memory, aging, and the search for meaning in a world reshaped by environmental catastrophe.

Summary

Bo lives alone in a flooded, rain-soaked city where streets have become rivers, buildings are overgrown with vines, and most residents have left or died.  For seven years, constant rain has transformed her home into a verdant, decaying landscape, and her life reflects the city’s slow collapse.

Many of Bo’s family and friends have escaped to safer places, urging her to leave as well, but she remains rooted by grief and uncertainty.  Her mother vanished in a devastating flood two years earlier, and Bo clings to the faint hope that she might still be alive.

The city’s rooftop has become a gathering place where people buy and sell essentials, yet even this community is diminished and cautious.  Bo makes twice-weekly trips to the rooftop market, buying only what she needs and interacting with others in brief, subdued exchanges.

Once a caregiver and artist, Bo inherited savings from an elderly man she cared for, giving her some stability, but her creative drive faded under the weight of depression and the unending rain.

Bo’s life shifts when she accepts a caregiving job for Mia, a supercentenarian neighbor.  Although hesitant at first, Bo begins helping Mia with daily tasks, finding new purpose through the structure caregiving provides.

Their relationship develops slowly as Mia shares stories from her long life, including her family’s immigration history, losses, and reflections on growing old in a city now mostly abandoned.  Mia’s memories paint a picture of a place deeply scarred by environmental damage and social decline.

While Bo cares for Mia, she struggles with her own identity—torn between her lost ambitions as an artist and the demands of her new role.  Family members continue to press her to evacuate, but Bo feels a complex loyalty to Mia and the fragile community that remains.

Despite the bleakness, she finds moments of subtle hope in caregiving and connection.

Their routine includes simple acts like preparing meals and navigating the precarious stairwells and rooftops of their building.  Mia, though frail, insists on maintaining traditions like a Christmas dinner, adapting to the city’s transformed reality.

The story also introduces Eddie, a conservation biologist and occasional lover, whose work tracking environmental change contrasts with Bo’s stagnant existence.  Their relationship offers glimpses of renewal, even as Eddie plans to move away permanently.

Mia’s health declines steadily, and Bo’s caregiving intensifies.  She balances the practical challenges of care with the emotional weight of witnessing a life nearing its end.

At the same time, Bo begins a personal project to memorialize Mia, inspired by photographs and stories shared by Mia’s daughter and an archivist named Antonia.  Bo experiments with artistic techniques combining projections, archival materials, and drawings to capture Mia’s history and the city’s fading memory.

This memorial becomes a way for Bo to process loss, honor a life, and explore the fluid nature of memory itself.

Despite making plans to leave the city with her cousin’s help, Bo’s commitment to Mia and the building’s community holds her back.  The tension between preserving the past and moving forward surfaces in small conflicts, like an accident that removes seasoning from Mia’s cherished heirloom wok, symbolizing the fragility of memory and legacy.

As Mia’s condition worsens, Bo’s dedication deepens, and their relationship grows more intimate in quiet moments of care.  The memorial project culminates in a public display of layered images projected onto the cityscape, attracting attention and offering a shared experience of remembrance for neighbors and strangers alike.

After Mia passes peacefully, Bo sorts through the remnants of her life, preserving memories and connections as she contemplates her own place in the world.  Though the city is irrevocably changed, Bo’s art leaves a lasting impression, a testimony to lives lived amidst hardship and a hopeful assertion that meaning can still be found in care and memory, even as the world around her continues to shift and fade.

Characters

Bo

Bo is the story’s central figure, a solitary artist turned caregiver living amid the profound transformation of a flooded city.  Her character is marked by deep emotional complexity and a persistent internal struggle.

Initially, Bo is paralyzed by grief and loss, haunted by the disappearance of her mother in the catastrophic flood two years prior.  This trauma, coupled with the relentless rain and environmental collapse surrounding her, has drained her creative spirit, leaving her in a state of inertia and isolation.

Despite the urging of her cousin Jenson and other loved ones to leave for safer places, Bo feels anchored by her loyalty to the city and to Mia, the elderly neighbor she begins caring for.  Through her caregiving role, Bo gradually reclaims a sense of purpose and structure, awakening dormant skills and reigniting her artistic impulse.

She wrestles with the tension between her past ambitions as an artist and her present responsibilities, embodying themes of resilience and the search for meaning amid crisis.  Her interactions with Mia, her reflections on loss, and her tentative relationship with Eddie, a conservation biologist, further reveal her nuanced personality—someone caught between the desire for connection and the pull of loneliness, between rootedness and the urge to escape.

Mia

Mia is an elderly woman in the final stages of life whose frailty and vulnerability bring focus to the themes of aging, memory, and dignity.  She is a supercentenarian with a long and complex history, including immigration stories, family estrangements, and reflections on her own mother’s hardships.

Mia’s gruff exterior conceals a depth of experience and a yearning for connection despite her isolation.  Her requests, such as wanting a walk or a home-cooked Christmas meal, highlight her need for normalcy and ritual amid physical decline.

She shares stories of the city’s industrial past, displacement, and environmental damage, weaving personal history into broader social narratives.  Mia’s relationship with Bo is a cornerstone of the story; though initially reserved, it grows into a quiet companionship marked by mutual care and shared routines.

Her physical decline is portrayed with realism—marked by worsening health, memory lapses, and painful ailments—but her sharp retorts and strong opinions persist, revealing her resilience.  Mia’s presence catalyzes Bo’s creative memorial project, underscoring the significance of preserving memory and legacy in the face of erasure.

Jenson

Jenson, Bo’s cousin living in British Columbia, functions as a voice of concern and pragmatism from outside the flooded city.  He repeatedly urges Bo to evacuate to safety, arranging practical means such as chartering a boat, reflecting the outside world’s awareness of the environmental catastrophe.

Jenson’s role highlights the tension between those who have left and those who remain behind, emphasizing the isolation felt by Bo.  Although not deeply explored in the narrative, his repeated calls underscore the pressures on individuals caught in disaster zones to make difficult decisions about loyalty, survival, and family bonds.

Eddie

Eddie is a conservation biologist whose intermittent presence in Bo’s life offers moments of connection, hope, and contrast to her stagnation.  His work with environmental drones tracking changes in the flooded city symbolizes engagement with the natural world and scientific understanding amid decay.

His relationship with Bo, marked by tentative intimacy, represents a potential for renewal and emotional healing, even as his impending relocation underscores impermanence.  Eddie’s character brings a dimension of environmental consciousness and personal possibility to the story, highlighting the interplay between human relationships and the shifting landscape of climate crisis.

Beverly

Beverly is Mia’s daughter, whose distant involvement in her mother’s life reveals the complexities and strains of caregiving across generations and distances.  Her concern for Mia’s declining health is evident in her phone calls, which are tender yet tinged with guilt and helplessness.

Beverly’s reluctance or inability to be physically present contrasts with Bo’s hands-on caregiving, exposing the emotional and logistical challenges faced by families dealing with aging relatives in crisis.  Beverly’s presence in the narrative adds layers to the exploration of familial relationships, responsibility, and memory.

Antonia

Antonia, an archivist who assists Bo with materials for her memorial art project, plays a vital supporting role in linking the personal to the historical.  She introduces Bo to unconventional, ephemeral memorial practices, helping shape the artistic representation of Mia’s life and legacy.

Through Antonia, the story touches on themes of memory, history, and the ways in which the past can be preserved or transformed through creative acts.  Though a secondary character, Antonia’s influence is significant in Bo’s journey toward reconciling loss with artistic expression.

Themes

Isolation and Loneliness

In Awake in the Floating City, isolation and loneliness permeate both the physical environment and the emotional states of the characters, especially Bo and Mia.  The city itself, transformed by relentless rain and flooding, has become a fragmented and dying landscape, pushing most of its residents to flee, leaving behind a sparse and disconnected community.

Bo’s existence in her studio apartment is marked by a profound sense of solitude, intensified by the absence of family and friends who have relocated to safer places.  This physical isolation mirrors her internal emotional state, as she wrestles with grief, depression, and a paralyzing uncertainty about her future.

Mia’s experience of isolation emerges through the lens of aging—her frailty, memory lapses, and estrangement from her daughter highlight the loneliness that often accompanies old age.  Their companionship, though cautious and understated, offers a rare connection in an otherwise desolate world.

Yet even this bond is tinged with the knowledge that both women are tethered to fading lives and shrinking communities.  The rooftop market’s sparse vendors and the near-abandoned cityscape underscore how environmental disaster amplifies social isolation, making human connection both precious and precarious.

The narrative does not romanticize their solitude but presents it as a harsh reality, a condition that shapes how they relate to themselves and others, underscoring the human need for belonging even in the bleakest circumstances.

Grief and Loss

Grief in Awake in the Floating City extends far beyond individual sorrow to encompass collective and environmental loss.  Bo’s personal grief over her mother’s disappearance during a catastrophic flood embodies the human cost of climate catastrophe and social breakdown.

This loss acts as a barrier to Bo’s ability to move forward, trapping her in a state of emotional inertia that stifles both her creative drive and her willingness to leave the city.  The city itself is a symbol of loss—its drowned streets, overgrown ruins, and collapsing infrastructure reflect the demise of a once-thriving urban life and the erosion of stability and security.

Mia’s fading health and impending death add another layer of mourning, as Bo confronts the slow disappearance of a meaningful relationship and the limits of caregiving amid decline.  The art project Bo undertakes to memorialize Mia’s life becomes an act of resistance against oblivion, an attempt to preserve memory and affirm dignity in the face of erasure.

Grief here is not only about absence but about transformation—how loss reshapes identity, priorities, and the understanding of what remains valuable in life.  The narrative captures the complexity of grief, showing how it can immobilize yet also eventually catalyze renewed purpose.

Resilience and Caregiving

Despite the overwhelming despair and decay, Awake in the Floating City reveals the quiet strength of resilience through caregiving and human connection.  Bo’s evolution from a withdrawn, uncertain artist to a committed caregiver demonstrates how acts of care can restore meaning and agency in a fractured world.

Caring for Mia rekindles Bo’s sense of purpose, providing structure and an emotional anchor amid chaos.  This caregiving relationship bridges generational divides and fosters mutual dependence, illustrating how resilience emerges not from individual heroism but from the commitment to sustain others.

The community’s adaptation to the flood—such as the rooftop market and makeshift economies—also reflects human ingenuity and persistence in the face of environmental collapse.  Resilience here is portrayed realistically, marked by vulnerability and fatigue rather than triumphalism.

Bo’s balancing of artistic creativity with caregiving duties highlights how care work can be both grounding and transformative, enabling her to confront her own loss and to find subtle hope in continuity and shared experience.  The story suggests that survival depends not only on physical endurance but on the capacity to nurture relationships, to bear witness, and to create meaning in adversity.

Memory and Legacy

Memory in Awake in the Floating City functions as a dynamic and contested space where past and present coexist, influencing identity and survival.  Bo’s art project to memorialize Mia’s life through layered projections and archival images reflects a belief that memory is not fixed but living—shaped by personal stories, cultural histories, and environmental change.

The fusion of oral histories, photographs, and visual art becomes a means to honor lives often marginalized or forgotten, affirming the importance of narrative continuity despite physical and temporal disintegration.  Mia’s reflections on family estrangements, immigration, and aging weave a complex portrait of legacy shaped by hardship and resilience.

The tension between preservation and loss appears poignantly in moments like the scrubbing of Mia’s heirloom wok, symbolizing the fragility of memory and the inevitability of change.  The flooded city itself embodies the erosion of collective memory, as neighborhoods and histories disappear beneath rising waters.

Through Bo’s memorial, the story contends with how memory sustains identity, offers solace, and confronts mortality.  It suggests that legacy is not about permanence but about the ongoing process of remembering, reinterpreting, and making sense of human experience in an uncertain world.

Environmental Catastrophe and Displacement

The flooded, rain-soaked city in Awake in the Floating City is not merely a backdrop but a central force shaping every aspect of the characters’ lives.  The relentless rain and rising waters have devastated infrastructure, displaced populations, and transformed the urban environment into a wild, verdant ruin.

This environmental catastrophe creates conditions of scarcity, danger, and social fragmentation that permeate daily existence.  The narrative explores the social consequences of climate change—migration, abandonment, contamination, and the breakdown of community systems—showing how ecological crisis intersects with personal suffering and societal neglect.

Bo’s hesitation to leave reflects the complex ties people maintain to places even as those places become unlivable, underscoring the emotional and cultural dimensions of displacement.  The rooftop market and makeshift adaptations signify human attempts to persist and adapt, but the city’s slow decay is an ever-present reminder of loss and vulnerability.

Through the environmental lens, the story highlights the interdependence of human and natural systems, the fragility of modern life, and the urgent need to reckon with climate realities.  The floodwaters not only threaten physical survival but also unsettle notions of home, identity, and future, placing the characters in a liminal space between destruction and renewal.

Aging and the Passage of Time

Aging and mortality are deeply woven into the narrative through Mia’s character and Bo’s reflections on her own life.  Mia’s physical decline, memory lapses, and shifting moods depict the challenges of growing old in a world already marked by instability and loss.

Her stories about her past, her family struggles, and the loneliness of aging without close kin highlight the emotional complexity and social invisibility often faced by the elderly.  Bo’s caregiving role exposes the intimate realities of aging—vulnerability, dependence, and dignity—while also triggering her own contemplation of time, purpose, and change.

The passage of time is marked not only by bodily decay but by the shifting relationships between past, present, and future, as memories emerge and fade, ambitions are abandoned, and new roles are assumed.  The narrative captures the bittersweet nature of time’s flow, where endings are inevitable but also create space for reflection, renewal, and the creation of new meaning.

Aging here is neither sentimentalized nor denied; it is embraced as a fundamental part of human experience that shapes identity and connects generations through care, memory, and shared stories.