Curtis Ippolito:

Every fiction author gets asked which books have influenced their work. But what about as an editor of an anthology? I wondered about this recently while preparing to promote the release of On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology from Rock and a Hard Place Press. While the fine folks there came up with the theme and then generously invited me to join them as guest editor, I still pondered which books share the DNA of this collection of 15 stories that sets out to show how devastating the effects of climate change are for everyday people.

The titles came quickly to mind.

First up is Lady Chevy by John Woods. This heartbreaking story centers around the poisoning of a small town in Ohio by way of fracking and the ecoterrorism act committed by Amy Wirkner — or “Chevy,” as she’s known — that goes terribly wrong. Chevy is furious with the oil company, government, and everyone else who’s killing her home and its inhabitants. Those feelings ring true in many of our anthology’s stories, as well.

Next is The Last King of California by Jordan Harper, an epic novel with a raging wildfire ripping across its backdrop. Told in brutal, beautiful prose, the images Harper paints of the land are haunting. And that’s saying nothing of the heartbreak you’ll feel for his characters.

Like Harper’s novel, the third book’s imagery shares so much in common with many of On Fire’s stories. Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda is told during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. In several scenes of this Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner, Pochoda shows how desolate and almost post-apocalyptic L.A. was during lockdown. I fear it’s how many of our world’s bustling metropolises will look if climate change is not immediately addressed.

The last book that influenced me in regard to On Fire and Under Water is Delfina Cuero: Her Biography. Cuero was a Native American member of the Kumeyaay, an Indigenous people whose ancestral land includes San Diego. The book recounts her time growing up in San Diego before her family, displaced by colonizers, moved to Mexico. Through her eyes, I saw what the area was like before industrialization and major development, and likewise what our planet resembled closer to its “natural state.” The images stand in stark contrast to the devastating events happening globally at the hands of oil barons, politicians, pundits, and corporate oligarchs who refuse to take responsibly for creating the existential crisis we’re now in.

I hope you enjoy these books if you pick them up. And no matter what project I start next, I’ll continue to read books that to speak to me honestly, as these four did.

Curtis Ippolito is an Anthony Award-winning and Macavity and Derringer Award-nominated writer. He is the author of the crime novel Burying the Newspaper Man. His short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Dark Yonder, Tough, Vautrin Magazine, and elsewhere, and in several anthologies, including The One Percent: Tales of the Super Wealthy and Depraved and The Amber Waves of Autumn.