Climate refugees fleeing an American West turned desert. A German couple trapped in a new European Ice Age. A sensitive young man drafted to fight in the Tar Sands Wars. Rebels persecuted by a dictatorship of the fossil fuel industry. These and other stories explore life in a climate-altered near future: occasionally whimsical, often grim, always deeply human in their response to catastrophe.

Jan Underwood's apocalyptic vision in these beautifully written stories is both thrilling and disturbing. Her ordinary heroes will resonate with many readers who wonder what lies ahead.
—Jill Kelly, author of When Your Mother Doesn't and Fog of Dead Souls

When we can no longer depend on the natural world for sustenance or culture for safety and meaning, what remains? The Bell Lap explores the dark and fragile perimeters of the human experience when the terms of our existence have been altered beyond recognition and must be renegotiated individually and collectively. As you travel to the other side of climate change in these elegant and evocative stories, you will reconsider who you are, what you value, and where your place is in the human family.
—Sage Cohen, author of Like the Heart, the World and Writing the Life Poetic