What happens when the world as you know it changes course? When your seemingly rock-solid life suddenly becomes thin and porous? Such is the case for Claudia, a Latinx anthropologist based in Seattle, who is the complex protagonist of Subduction, a debut novel by Kristen Millares Young. Committed to a long-term research project documenting song and story sharing of the Makah people, the book begins with an image of Claudia on a ferry pulling away from Seattle, a city that holds her personal and professional struggles. She is heading for Neah Bay, the most northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula, and Young offers luminous descriptions of this distinct passage to the coast. “Eagles and vultures wheeled through the gloaming over razed forests and colossal silvered stumps that sprouted frail versions of themselves.”