Earthquake science and imagination collide in tilt

Climate journalist Emma Batey has been concerned for some time about a so-called megaquake — an unusual earthquake — hitting her city of Portland, Oregon. And she's not alone: ​​Scientists estimate there's at least a 37 percent chance that such an earthquake will hit the Pacific Northwest, which lies along the Cascadia subduction zone, within the next 50 years. In her debut novel, Tilt, voted one of Scientific American's Best Fiction Books of 2025, Patty explores this hypothetical day through the eyes of Annie, a Portland native who is nine months pregnant and shopping for cribs at IKEA when disaster strikes. Through the novel, Annie goes on an epic journey back home, and in doing so makes some profound discoveries.

Scientific American spoke with Patti about the inspiration for her book and why it's important to get the science right.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

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Your book begins with a detailed map of Portland. Why did you decide to focus on this site?

I came up with this idea, like many writers, because I live in Portland and work as a climate journalist. I was at IKEA, and the idea came to me; I knew I wanted to write something very realistic, and I didn't realize how challenging it would be to write a “realistic fiction” book about something that hadn't happened yet.

As a science journalist, what scientific messages do you hope readers will take away from this book?

Just to be clear, this is not a work of climate fiction, although it is certainly an allegory of climate fiction. I think what I hope people understand from the book is that a “big” earthquake is not a scenario where everyone dies. And in Portland at the time I was writing, that's how a lot of people talked about this hypothetical earthquake, saying things like, “What's the point of being prepared — because everyone's going to die.” Very few people were speaking in an established manner. The thing that came out of writing this book was the realization that not a lot of people are going to die in the earthquake, but you are going to desperately need water, and the people around you are going to need water, and you're going to feel like such a bad person that you didn't get water to the weak and sick people around you.

Why did you decide to explore this hypothetical earthquake through fiction?

I think a lot of great factual articles have already been written about this earthquake. There's a book called Full-Rip 9.0 by Sandy Dutton. It's great. There's the Pulitzer Prize-winning article in The New Yorker by Katherine Schultz about earthquake hazards in the Pacific Northwest. There's not much I can add to that. What interested me most was that you can write so much about science, but people still struggle to take it home, to see how it will impact their lives. I began to feel that a lot of the work I was doing on climate change was just writing for other scientists. There's really not much that can be written that would tell the average person living in Portland what they might need to expect, emotionally or otherwise.

The story does a good job of not sensationalizing or creating too much fear in the reader, but it also makes it clear that a big earthquake is going to be very bad. It almost feels like some kind of preparation exercise for you. Is this accurate?

I don't think she was required to be prepared mainly because, without spoiling the ending, she's not prepared! I'm not prepared for the earthquake. How do we live with something coming that everyone says we should prepare for, but in reality there is no way to prepare for? This is climate change, this is the earthquake that will destroy our city. But so is fatherhood and having a child. I think that was what I was writing about more than just, how could someone break through an earthquake, which I still don't know.

This book is disturbingly ordinary in parts. I think your opening scene is the perfect example of this. Why did you and Annie start shopping at IKEA?

I'm sure a lot of that has to do with my work as a climate journalist. I would talk to these scientists, and then we would turn off the recorder and have these incredibly painful conversations; Then I will have to pick my child up from school and go buy food. I somehow carry this idea that we're potentially looking at extinction, and I still have to yell at my daycare teacher because I brought the wrong size diapers. I'm very interested in this aspect of modern life at the moment. At first, Annie was influenced by consumerism, and the earthquake literally freed her from that. Eventually, she may revert to her more original, monster form. This is terrifying, but in some ways, is this also beautiful?

How can you track Annie across time and space so closely?

I used Google Maps extensively and plotted my route. I wrote a lot of this book on the streets where it happened. I wrote much of this book at IKEA. I spent a lot of time in these physical spaces, really trying to describe things as accurately as possible. I went to earthquake training at a brick school [building]. I went to an emergency training day with emergency teams in our area here, and I personally interviewed people who were on the scene after major earthquakes in China. [in 2008] And in [the autonomous region Azad Kashmir in Pakistan in 2005]. I even rode a bike while I was 40 weeks pregnant because people kept saying they didn't think the bike scene was believable. I worked with a graduate student, where we basically came up with the magnitude of the earthquake and picked the date that the earthquake would occur. We worked out how much rain had fallen so we could determine soil conditions. This level of accuracy has become my north star. I think it's a really difficult way to write fiction, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

One feature of the novel that stands out is your use of flashbacks. Were you just giving the reader a breather, or was there something else you were trying to explore?

Yeah, I mean 9/11 was the primary source material I used in this book. I leaned really hard into the 9/11 accounts. I read a lot of novels about people [who needed] To walk long distances to get home and along the way they made really big decisions about their lives. That was interesting to me. Why does Annie need to change her life? Why does this change seem impossible without the earthquake? I think it's also about the kind of internal inventory of her life. I've met people who have had this suspended moment in time where their priorities become crystal clear, and you have an opportunity to change your life. For me, this is the central message of the book: there is still time to change your life.

One of the most horrifying scenes has Annie finding some parents searching for their missing children in the collapsed school building. How did you keep this scene poignant as a human being and also scientifically accurate?

The school landscape was very complex for me, given that there are nearly two dozen schools here in Portland that are at risk of collapsing in a major earthquake. As I was writing the book, I really learned how sending children to school in buildings like this represents a profound moral dilemma. I felt a moral weight writing a scene like this; It was very important to me that it was very accurate. I brought in actual rescue experts to read this and tell me if it was realistic. I am a parent of young children in Portland. A lot of my friends have kids who go to those schools. It was really important that I wouldn't make it worse than it was going to be and I wouldn't make it better than it was going to be. In a sort of strange twist of fate, the local newspaper ran this scene the week my book was published next to an article I had written. There was so much buzz that the school board committed to fixing 10 of the most dangerous brick buildings, something parents have been working on for more than a decade.

How did writing this book change your perspective on earthquakes, humanity, and life in general?

When I started writing it, I thought a big earthquake would mean people would break into my house to take my food and water. I had such a profound transformation. Part of that is becoming a father and being more connected to my community. I'm already beginning to see that my goal in preparing for an earthquake is not to have food and water for myself and my children, but to have enough to share with the most vulnerable people on the street where I live. Being prepared has become, for me, a civic duty — going from that feeling of fear to thinking that there might actually be an opportunity where I can help others fills me with so much meaning.

Can you tell me what other books on this topic – or that you have used in your research or that you may have read recently – that you can recommend?

For my research I read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. I read a book called “Wave” by Sonali Deraniyajala, who lost her children in the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It's a very intense read. I'm reading a book called “Trust” by Raphael Fromkin, which is a great book. Another book that had a huge impact on me was The Weather by Jenny Offill, a fictional book about climate change.

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