BURST: a novel

Think it’s bad now? BURST is a portrait of San Francisco on the brink. Lurid inequality, surging homelessness, and mass evictions have become the norm, while record high tides and whales beaching themselves on the city’s shores by the dozen add more unease. But a recent spate of muggings targeting those who flaunt their gadgets has thrown the city into a whole new level of agitation. Liam Greber and Charlotte Leung Greber are a successful couple in San Francisco’s tech industry, though they are haunted by what has been happening around them, as well as by the recent termination of an unviable pregnancy Their lives are completely upended, however, when they take in a lost dog, then run into its owner, a homeless youth named Ben. Meanwhile, Ben’s social worker Geena, a native of the city, has been trying to help people survive, but she’s barely hanging on herself. Yet when things boil over on the streets, Geena, Ben, Liam and Charlotte are all swept into the chaos, and together they must navigate what they each have lost, while navigating the underbelly of a city on edge, a city in crisis—a city about to burst.