What would you do if you knew the world was to be ripped apart by a black hole in less than a month? Would you abandon your life, frantically attempting to cross off as many bucket list items as possible before your time expires? Bury your head in the sand, pretend the inevitable isn’t on the way? Take your fate into your own hands? If everyone is barreling toward the same unceremonious end, does it matter at all?
TJ Klune’s We Burned So Bright opens with just such a revelation. A black hole, rogue, unexplainable, appears at the edge of the solar system and begins doing what black holes do, gobbling up everything in its path. Earth and all the life she bears will be collateral damage to its hunger. Married for forty years, Don and Rodney have survived so much already: AIDS and the violent homophobia that accompanied it, the quotidian strife of ordinary life. The septuagenarians accept their fate with aplomb; they know exactly what must be done. With an RV acquired, a route mapped to keep away from the hysteria of the highways as much as possible, they take off on a road trip from Maine to Washington to handle some unfinished business.
Along the way, they meet folks processing their shared fate in all their messy, human glory. Despite their rapidly declining time left to complete their mission, Don and Rodney forge genuine connections with people whose lives have almost no similarities to their own. Each new person, hysterical, terrified, resigned, or joyful as they may be, share their stories with the men. Each new experience forces the pair to consider their lives from new perspectives.
That Klune chose a pair of elderly gay men as the vehicle for this exploration of meaning and life is itself quite interesting. As one might expect, as the men drive westward, the infrastructure of the United States crumbles and falls away: police stop showing up, cars are abandoned en masse, radio stations slowly drop off the air. It would be a difficult journey for the most able-bodied—how many other post-apocalyptic stories feature similarly harrowing treks?—but Don and Rodney persist, often out of sheer force of will. Nearly every other person they encounter on their journey is substantially younger than they are, creating opportunities to explore aging and the way the world has (and has not) changed over the course of their long lives.
For being a book about the end of the world, We Burned So Bright is almost frenetic in its hopefulness. It is a love letter to love in all its forms, but the love between Don and Rodney is palpable, the thrumming heartbeat of a novel that is all heart. Fear is, of course, an omnipresent specter, ratcheting up as each subsequent planet disappears. Don and Rodney’s fear is propulsive: they have one final mission they must see to in order to close the book on their lives in the way they want. Fear causes other characters to behave erratically, but the novel maintains empathy for even the most destructive fear.
The fear of death itself is rendered inert, an inescapable fact, replaced with the headier fears that we’re grappling with in our not-quite-apocalyptic world: fear of suffering, of meaninglessness, and suffering meaninglessly. What does living well mean when evidence of everything that has ever happened disappears? It takes the end of the world for people to listen to each other; a warning.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I devoured this book with all the mania of the black hole, rapt, hanging on every word, feeling every emotion, asking every question of the book and of my own life. In the uncertainty of the times we live in, We Burned So Bright’s insistence on joy, love, and accepting that you did the best you could, regardless of outcome, is a much needed salve for my raw heart. The pairing of the road trip structure and the omnipresence of the ticking clock give this short novel a quick but immersive reading experience. If nothing else, it is a reminder that we are here, at least in part, to bear witness to each others’ experience; a call to listen.
FICTION
TJ Klune
Tor Books
Published on April 28, 2026
